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Circular Chess. Chess on a round board. (16x4, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Ralph Peters wrote on Fri, Jun 25, 2004 08:31 AM UTC:

Michael & Jeff - Thank you for your replies and insights! 

Jeff, I didn't mean to imply only ortho rules are good, but in reading
VARIANT pages I noticed that when a variant changes board shape from
square, the designer seems to collect special and positive
mention/recognition when he imitates ortho rules/array more closely than
not.  Two such examples relating to hexagonal chess ...

'The Soviet geologist Isaak Grigor'evich Shafran created his version of
hexagonal chess in 1939 and registered his invention in 1956.  It was
demonstrated at the Worldwide Chess Exhibition in Leipzig in 1960.  For
reasons that probably have to do with marketing, despite a wave of
interest following the publication of a description in the magazine Junyj
texnik, the game has not gained the popularity enjoyed by Glinski's
variant, although it is significantly closer to orthodox chess in several
respects.'  [Ivan A. Derzhanski]

'There have been many attempts to design a form of chess for a hexagonal
field. (This site has around 50.) The most widely played is surely
Wladislaw Glinski's version (1936), on a 91-hex board.  An international
federation still exists, and the game retains popularity in eastern
Europe.  David McCooey (1979) also designed a 91-hex game, which some
maintain does a better job of paralleling its square-grid counterpart.
[Glenn Overby II]