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

King - standard king (no castling)
Bishop - standard bishop
Pawns - Berolina pawns. no initial double step. promote to B, C or N when reaching opponent's last rank, can only promote to a piece that was previously captured.
Knight - standard knight
Centurion - moves up to two squares in any direction (horizontal, vertical,diagonal) can't jump over 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.

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For author and/or inventor information on this item see: this item's information page.
Last modified on: March 26, 2001.

Hour Glass Chess

The Board

Pieces

Starting Position

Notes

See Also

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