Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Uri Bruck.

Hour Glass Chess

The Board

The board is 7x6 with four squares cut out, specifically a3, a4, g3, g4, so it looks like this:

  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
6 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
5 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
4     |   |   |   |   |   | 
      +---+---+---+---+---+
3     |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
2 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
1 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    a   b   c   d   e   f   g

Pieces

Starting Position

  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
6 | B | C | N | K | N | B | C |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
5 |   | P | P | P | P | P |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
4     |   |   |   |   |   |    
      +---+---+---+---+---+    
3     |   |   |   |   |   |    
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
2 |   | p | p | p | p | p |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
1 | b | c | n | k | n | b | c |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    a   b   c   d   e   f   g  

Notes

First I found a board shape I liked. then I considered that rook like pieces would be somewhat restricted on such a board, but bishops could be potentially powerful. So I first place bishops at the corners, and then shifted on, to start them on different colors. Knight are also potentially powerful on this board. Longer leapers seemed out of place here. Since both bishops and knight are potentialy powerful, adding another piece of equal strength seemed unbalancing. So I added a Centurion, not qute the same centurion as in Archchess.


Written by Uri Bruck. HTML conversion and graphic by David Howe.
This is an entry in the Contest to make a chess variant on a board with 38 squares.
WWW page created: January 30, 1998.