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Glinski's Hexagonal Chess. Chess on a board made out of hexagons. (Cells: 91) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Sep 19, 2016 01:44 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

For my own comparison of this fine variant to the equally fine McCooey's Hexagonal Chess, see my review for the latter variant.

Decades ago I saw values given for the pieces in Glinski's (that would seem to apply to McCooey's too): P=1; B=3; N=4; R=5; Q=9. I'd add that I estimate the fighting value of K=4 approximately (though naturally it cannot be traded).


Michel Gutierrez wrote on Sat, May 17, 2014 11:51 AM UTC:
I have updated the Glinski Chess implementation on Jocly to match rule 2. The Android and iPhone/iPad apps are still using rule 1 until the next upgrade.

Ben Reiniger wrote on Fri, May 9, 2014 06:57 PM UTC:
(Maybe you added it after finding an answer on wikipedia, but that pawn rule currently appears here as rule 3.)

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, May 9, 2014 04:54 PM UTC:
I found the answer on Wikipedia. It says "If a pawn captures from its starting cell in such a way that it then occupies a starting cell of another pawn, it can still make a double move."

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, May 9, 2014 04:50 PM UTC:

I am working on a new Game Courier preset for this game that should handle win/loss conditions, and it occurred to me that double moves can be handled in one of two ways.

  1. A double move is allowed only on a Pawn's first move.
  2. A double move is allowed from any space the same player could start his Pawns on.

Has there been any ruling on which is correct? It makes a difference if a Pawn moves to another space that another of his Pawns started on by capturing a piece.


Peter wrote on Thu, May 6, 2010 10:11 AM UTC:
Live hexagonal chess competition will be in Hungary on
8-11 July 2010. More details at 
http://5mp.eu/fajlok/hexasakk/2010_tamasi_k_angol_www.5mp.eu_.htm
All are welcome!
Peter

Peter wrote on Tue, Feb 2, 2010 09:08 AM UTC:
The next live hexagonal chess competition will take place in Hungary on
12-15 March 2010. More details at 
http://5mp.eu/fajlok/hexasakk/versenykiiras_angol_www.5mp.eu_.htm
All are welcome!
Peter

Richmond Mathewson wrote on Tue, Apr 7, 2009 02:30 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I have been playing Hexagonal chess with this layout:

http://mail.maclaunch.com/richmond/hexchess.html

for years. I believe it is better than Glinski's because there is greater
space between opposing pawns.

David Paulowich wrote on Thu, Jan 31, 2008 02:46 PM UTC:
Carlos, the preset is listed under Hexagonal Chess (Glinski).

carlos carlos wrote on Thu, Jan 31, 2008 11:30 AM UTC:
where is the preset for this game?

Ian Hudson wrote on Thu, May 3, 2007 10:08 PM UTC:
Does anyone know where I might buy a Glinski Hexagonal chess board? If so, please email me at [email protected]. Thanks.

Sergej Korchitskij wrote on Thu, Apr 20, 2006 08:59 PM UTC:
It is no hard to win in hexachess! I never had such problem!

Tord Romstad wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 09:49 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Hexagonal chess is no more drawish than normal chess, and it is no more
difficult to deliver mate than in normal chess.  It is true that the king
has greater mobility, but so does most of the other pieces.  The reason
why some beginners believe that it's difficult to deliver mate is
probably that spotting mating patterns can be a bit tricky for beginners;
partly because the game is unfamiliar, and partly because there is a
bigger number of potential flight squares to inspect in order to mentally
verify that it is indeed a mate.

I am the author of Scatha, which is probably the strongest hexagonal
chess
program available today.  Unfortunately, it only runs on Mac OS X.  If
someone is interested in giving the game a try against a strong opponent,
I would be happy to play a few informal e-mail games with Scatha.  I
would
be very impressed if someone manages a draw.

Gary Gifford wrote on Thu, Mar 16, 2006 01:59 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
In regard to Sam's comments about Glinski's great game.... I see no need to complain about it. It's been around since about 1936 or 1938 and little research shows that there were over 500,000 players of this game at one point... quite commendable. Also, it remains the most popular of hexagonal chess variants and even has world championship playoffs.

Sam Trenholme wrote on Thu, Mar 16, 2006 12:23 AM UTC:
I agree that six games is not an exhaustive sample. However, it's the best data I have available. Now, I don't have enough of a background in statistics to give you a error percentage with these figures; however, it may be telling that we have played 31 FIDE Chess games on Game Courier and not one of them ended in a draw.

Then again, according to this Russian page (translated via the fish here) King + Rook vs. King (and King + Queen vs. King) is a mate against a bare King.

I wish I had more game results to look at to see just how drawish this game is; the results over at Game Courier don't make this game look very good.

Perhaps Glinski's Hex Chess with Shogi drops?

- Sam

Editors: The last comment is a duplicate of this comment and may be safely deleted

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Mar 16, 2006 12:22 AM UTC:
I agree that six games is not an exhaustive sample. However, it's the best data I have available. Now, I don't have enough of a background in statistics to give you a error percentage with these figures; however, it may be telling that we have played 31 FIDE Chess games on Game Courier and not one of them ended in a draw.

Then again, according to this Russian page (translated via the fish here) King + Rook vs. King (and King + Queen vs. King) is a mate against a bare King.

I wish I had more game results to look at to see just how drawish this game is; the results over at Game Courier don't make this game look very good.

Perhaps Glinski's Hex Chess with Shogi drops?

- Sam


Roberto Lavieri wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 11:57 PM UTC:
I have not confident data available, but I have seen a few results in high-level tournaments, by curiosity. I can´t conclude, but it seems, more or less, as drawish as Chess. It means: very drawish, as FIDE-Chess is, when played at very high level of play.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 11:28 PM UTC:
Six games is too small of a sample to draw any generalizations from. Another factor to consider is whether some of the players have any tendency toward drawing games. For example, Roberto Lavieri, who drew one of these games, has drawn about one quarter of all his games on Game Courier. In the game he played against Ben Good, the game ended while each side still had two Rooks, a Bishop, a Knight and several Pawns. Roberto was actually ahead by two Pawns and probably could have won, but he concluded that the game was drawish and offered Ben a draw, which, being behind, he was wise to take. If the game is drawish, your arguments for this will have to depend, at this point, on a priori analysis of the game mechanics or data on more games than those played on Game Courier.

Sam Trenholme wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 08:47 PM UTC:
Looks like you're right.

Here is how I got to see all six games:

  • I went to this page
  • I typed in 'Glinski's Hexagonal Chess' in the 'Game Filter' box
  • I put down 'Anytime' as the age filter.
  • I put in 'Any games' as the status filter.
  • I got the six games you mentioned.
As an aside, I still consider a draw rate of 33% too high. Basically, if a game is getting over 10% draws, it is probably time to revise the game's rules.

- Sam


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 08:37 PM UTC:
Six games have been played on Game Courier, and only two have ended in draws.

Sam Trenholme wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 07:43 PM UTC:
Over three years ago, I pointed out that this game is probably too drawish, based on looking at the game mechanics (the king is too hard to checkmate). I'm not surprised that both games of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess played on the game courier server ended in draws.

My Russian isn't good enough to look at all of the games played in tournaments on the Russian page, so I can't get a sense of the draw percentage there, but I will bet you it's a lot bigger than the corresponding FIDE Chess draw percentage.

Here are three ways to make this game less drawish:

  • The king can only move to one of the six hexes that fully touch the hex the king is on. I proposed this over three years ago. As an aside, a rule like this will also make many 3d Chess games less drawish.
  • Bare king is a win for the other player; Mr. Gilman suggested this.
  • Add Shogi-style drops to the game
- Sam

Andreas Kaufmann wrote on Sat, Feb 4, 2006 11:14 AM UTC:
By the way, Alfred Pfeiffer found a nice way how to implement Glinski's standard notation in ZRF. One can simply use 'translate' command to give the cells desired coordinates: (translate ('g2' 'g1') ('g3' 'g2') ... ). I updated ZRF on my homepage (see my previous comment) with these changes.

Andreas Kaufmann wrote on Sun, Jan 29, 2006 10:05 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
ZRF with a nice graphics can be downloaded from my homepage. ZRF is by J. Mark Thompson and Ivan A Derzhanski, graphics created by me.

Olya Chichkina wrote on Sat, Apr 2, 2005 05:29 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Creative! It will probably take hours and hours, or days, or months to reach checkmate (if it's reachable at all!) since there's so much space on the board and I'm not sure if I'd want to play this more than once, but I'd love to have something like Hexagonal Chess as a decoration! Love the idea!

Bill wrote on Sun, Dec 19, 2004 02:48 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I had no idea.  Great page and very informative.

I think I will try this variant of the month.

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