Community variant

Hormuz Chess

Chess of Hormuz is a tactical chess variant played on an 8×9 board where the center rank is blocked by indestructible walls, leaving only a narrow 2-file gap open in the middle. With both flanks permanently sealed, standard forces and elite fairy pieces—the Amazon, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Centaur—must fight head-on through a brutal central choke-point. There is no castling, and the Kings start aligned directly down the open channel.

This is a user-catalogued casual variant. Technical details such as board size, FEN, pieces, and hand rules are defined in the Fairy-Stockfish variants.ini block below.

Uploaded by: Hailstorm
Visibility: public
Status: active

Generated rule overview

This variant inherits its base rules from `chess` and overrides the settings shown below.

Board and setup

Default starting position

Pieces and movement

The piece set used on the board is: king (k), rook (r), bishop (b), knight (n), pawn (p), custom piece 2 (a), custom piece 3 (c), custom piece 4 (h) and custom piece 1 (z).
custom piece 1 (z) is a custom piece with Betza movement `QN`.
custom piece 2 (a) is a custom piece with Betza movement `BN`.
custom piece 3 (c) is a custom piece with Betza movement `KN`.
custom piece 4 (h) is a custom piece with Betza movement `RN`.

Move rules

Castling is not allowed.
Pawn double-step moves are enabled.

Promotion

Promotions are available in the configured promotion zones. The the promotion region for White is all squares on rank 9 and the promotion region for Black is all squares on rank 1.
The pieces that can promote are: pawn (p).
Promotion choices are both sides: custom piece 1 (z), bishop (b), custom piece 2 (a), custom piece 3 (c) and custom piece 4 (h).

Piece movement

These diagrams show custom pieces and known Fairy-Stockfish built-in fairy pieces from White's perspective on a compact preview board. Some special moves, especially hoppers and game-state-dependent moves, can still depend on blockers or game state.

Custom piece 1 (Z) movement

QN

Custom piece 2 (A) movement

BN

Custom piece 3 (C) movement

KN

Custom piece 4 (H) movement

RN

move capture move or capture initial only hopper target

Fairy-Stockfish rules

[chesshormuz:chess]
maxRank = 9
maxFile = 8

# Standard piece bindings
rook = r
knight = n
bishop = b
king = k
pawn = p

# Custom Pieces (Explicitly mapped to avoid engine preset errors)
customPiece1 = z:QN
customPiece2 = a:BN
customPiece3 = c:KN
customPiece4 = h:RN

# Board Mapping
# Must include standard slots 1-6 (PNBRQK) first, then our 4 custom slots (ZACH)
pieceToCharTable = PNBRQKZACHpnbrqkzach

# FIXED FEN: Using '***' to define exactly 3 missing squares (holes) on each side
startFen = rnbkzach/pppppppp/8/8/***2***/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBKZACH w - - 0 1

# Game Rules
castling = false
doubleStep = true
doubleStepRegionWhite = *2
doubleStepRegionBlack = *8

# Promotion Handling (Ranks 1 and 9)
promotionRegionWhite = *9
promotionRegionBlack = *1
promotionPieceTypes = zbach