Four Interesting Chess Variants

 "The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature and the players on the other side is hidden from us"  - Thomas Huxley

We all know the game of chess, its pieces, its rules, the openings and the strategy. Some of us spent hours using the pieces to solve puzzles or to gain elo. But when you change the rules or pieces around to spice up the game, some of these variations can be fun like Bobby Fisher's Chess 960 or George Verney's 4 Player Chess. But some of these variations can resemble chess, but can be wired and totally different playing them. Enjoy!

Hexagonal Chess

What if Chess was in another shape? How much would it affect the game if the board is bigger or if the board was in a different shape? Today we are looking at Hexagonal Chess, if chess was in hexagons, one might say, the perfect shape.

The board 91 cells with six bordering cells, changing how many ways pieces move, with three colors, two at the top or bottom and another color at the sides, which means one side has three bishops. Another thing that there is nine pawns in the game in a chain in the beginning of the game, with the center pawn being at the top. The rules on the pieces movement is almost the same, which will be explained at the bottom.

Bishops: What's important to note that the bishop goes on one color so diagonally means going through two colors to get to the other color. The bishop goes six ways through a diagonal. 

Knight: The same thing, Knights move an L shape or move three cells then one cell to ether side or the other way around. The same rule applies to them jumping over a piece.

Queen: Queens move diagonally or straight like a normal queen but there is 12 ways for a queen to move now.

King: Same as the Queen but only one side and can't castle.

Rooks: Can move straight in six different ways.

Pawn: Same thing but at the opening, when capturing a piece that used to be a pawns starting square, the pawn can still move two spaces. 

Chaturanga

Chess is a timeless game, and it wasn't always the chess we know and loved today. In fact, the first version of the game is dated back more then 1,500 years ago as a Indian board game called Chaturanga. We are going to look at this ancient game and how you can play it.

Chaturanga, or "four limbed or " is known as the first version that started games like chess like Janggim, Makruk, Indian Chess, and many more from different countries. As for chess, it was adapted by the Arabians with the Europeans discovered and after a few rules it will be the chess we know today. It was played on a board called the Astapada which sometimes have special markings. 

Ashva/Knight: Moves like a Knight.

Mantri/Minister: Moves one square diagonally. 

Raja/King: Moves like a regular king but with no castling.

Ratha/Rook: Moves like a rook.

Sainika/Warrior: Moves like a pawn without the ability to move two squares.

Gaja/Elephant: Through history, how the Gaja moves is different in three ways, however, you play it through chess.com variants by moving two squares diagonally jumping over pieces.

Now that you learn the rules, you can play it here - https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturanga 

Shogi (Japanese Chess)

Left is Shogi in Japanese and right is the international version

We seen the oldest form of chess, and if chess was in a different shape, but what if chess is modified to have more pieces with special promotions... would it feel like a different game? That's for you to decide as we explore Japanese Chess, or Shogi. 
*Shogi is split into two words in, Sho means general, and Gi means board game. 

The game is played on a 9x9 board and four dotted lines in the center, which marks the boarder for promotion zones on the opponent's side. Along with the usual pieces of chess without the queen, it has a Lance, a Gold General, and a Silver General. On the second rank, it has a bishop and a rook in front of knights. Every pieces promote to a Gold General piece except the Rook, the Bishop, or the King. 
Aside from the extra pieces, there is a few extra rules that you need to follow to play Shogi:

- Even though the pieces are non-colored, black moves first, as the person who moved first is considered black.

- You can't check a king two moves in a row.

- Shogi is also like Crazyhouse, if captured, then the piece demotes and goes to the other side for the player to use.

Pieces and Promotions

Gold General: Like a queen but can't move backwards diagonally
Silver General: Moves like a Gold General but one space and can't move backwards a Gold General 
Lance: Moves like a rook but only ahead and not backwards 

- Bishop promotes to a Dragon Horse, which also moves as a bishop and move one space as a rook
- Rook promotes to a Dragon King which moves as a rook and moves one space like a bishop

Rotorblades Chess

So far we covered Hexagonal Chess, Shogi, Chaturanga, but how about a variant with different pieces on a circular board? We have our last variant for this blog, Rotorblades Chess.

Rotorblade chess is a variant on a round board with 174 triangles with each color having 87 triangles. There are 14 different pieces with each side having 32 pieces making it 64 pieces on the board. To win, you have to checkmate the king, and if you stalemate then its still a win. There are many different kinds of pieces and how they move so below is a explanation on every one of them. 

Note: The Rook is both dots and the Bishop is only the red dotes

I will only be covering the extra pieces as the original chess pieces move the same way on a normal board. 

Spire: Almost the same thing as a bishop except it moves though colors.

Nobleman: Like the Knight but it controls more spaces. (Yellow dots)

Hunter: Like a Nobleman but can move to nine spaces and moves in a different pattern.

Page: Like a Hunter with a different pattern.

Guard: Like a pawn but can skip spaces if a piece is in the way

Hornet: Moves on the same path as a Spire. Both work together to capture other pieces

Termite: Moves on the same path as a Rook and jumps over piece.

Emperor: A piece that moves like a Spire and a Rook 

Princes: A piece that moves like a Bishop and a Spire (Yellow dotes only)

Credit to chessvarients.com for images

So that is four different variants that you might have never heard off, and it shows how creative some people can be when making variants even though they can be a little strange playing it. If you like this blog, please comment what you think and follow me if you want to see more of my blogs. I want to make more of these blogs in the future so if you like them, expect more variant blogs in the future.  

I hope you enjoyed this blog!