How to play 3Chess

1 · Board & setup

The board is a regular hexagon of 127 cells (radius 6). It is divided into three identical territories arranged at 120° to one another. The three players are Gold, Azure and Crimson. Each plays from a structurally identical position. There is no first-player advantage built into the geometry. Cells are addressed with axial coordinates (q, r); a cell is on the board when max(|q|, |r|, |q+r|) ≤ 6. Like a normal chessboard the cells fall into colour classes. Here there are three. A bishop is locked to the one it starts on for the whole game.

Each player has 15 pieces. 45 on the board in total (about a third of the cells occupied at the start):

• Back row (7): Rook, Bishop, Knight, King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, filling the player's home edge.
• Pawn row (8): eight pawns on the rank one step ahead of the back row.

The three armies are exact 120° rotations of each other, so whatever holds for Gold's opening holds for Azure's and Crimson's.

2 · Turn order

Play goes Gold → Azure → Crimson → Gold → … On your turn you make exactly one legal move. There is no passing. When a player is eliminated, the turn order simply skips them and the remaining two continue alternating.

3 · Piece movement

Every piece keeps its familiar chess character, re-expressed on the hex grid. A hex cell has six orthogonal neighbours and six "diagonal" directions: twelve in all. This changes the exact geometry but not the spirit of each piece.

In each diagram the piece sits in the gold-outlined cell · highlighted cells are where it can move · for the pawn, red cells are where it captures.

King

Queen

Rook

Bishop

Knight

4 · The pawn

The pawn is the piece most reshaped by the hex board, so it gets its own section.

• Move: one cell forward into either of two adjacent cells. A pawn has a pair of forward directions, not one. It moves only onto empty cells.
• Capture: the two outer-flanking cells, one step further out on each side of the forward pair. Captures enemy pieces only, never captures straight ahead.
• Facing: each army's pawns push toward the opposite edge.
  • Gold: south (SW + SE)
  • Azure: east (E + NE)
  • Crimson: west (NW + W)
• Double step: from its starting row a pawn may step two cells forward in a single direction. Both cells must be empty.
• En passant: when an enemy pawn double-steps past one of your pawn's capture cells, you may capture it on your very next turn by moving onto that cell. One-turn window only.
• Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far-edge row promotes. Your choice of Queen, Rook, Bishop or Knight.
• Threat (for territory): a pawn always threatens its two capture cells, even when those cells are empty. This matters when the game ends on territory score (below).

5 · Capture & elimination

Moving onto an enemy's cell removes that piece permanently. A player is eliminated when their king is checkmated or captured. After a player is eliminated:

• Their pieces stay on the board as neutral obstacles.
• They don't move, don't attack, and don't give check.
• They can still be captured by the remaining players.

6 · Check, checkmate & stalemate

Check: your king is attacked by an active enemy piece. You must get out of it on your turn. Self-check is prohibited: you can't make a move that leaves (or puts) your own king in check. Checkmate: check with no legal escape. That player is eliminated. The last player standing wins. Because there are two kings to threaten, a single move can occasionally checkmate both opponents at once. This cascading checkmate ends the game on the spot.

Stalemate means no legal moves and not in check. It's handled differently depending on how many players remain:

• 3 players: that player's turn is simply skipped. Play continues.
• 2 players: the game ends and is decided by territory score.

7 · Winning the game

1. Checkmate. Eliminate both opponents. You win outright.
2. Territory. If the game reaches a draw condition instead (see below), it doesn't end in a draw. It is scored by territory, and the highest score wins.

8 · Territory score

When a game is decided by territory, each player's score is:

score = (empty cells you exclusively attack) + (your piece count)

• Exclusive means only you attack that cell. A cell another live player also attacks is contested and counts for no one.
• Pawns always threaten their two capture squares, so they contribute even when those squares are empty.
• Eliminated players' pieces don't count, for them or against anyone.

9 · Draw → territory victory

The classic draws of chess don't end a 3Chess game in a tie. They trigger territory scoring. The conditions:

• Threefold repetition: the same position reached three times.
• The 20-move rule: 20 moves by each player with no capture and no pawn move. This is 3Chess's equivalent of chess's 50-move rule. It was cut from 50 to 20 because three-player endgames stall faster. The shorter limit removes long dead positions without cutting off real play.
• Insufficient material: neither side has the force to mate.
• Stalemate with two players remaining.

Whenever one of these triggers, the territory score is computed and the leader wins. Net effect: every 3Chess game produces a result. There is no stalemate-loop, no draw by exhaustion.

10 · A worked example — how a typical game flows

Here's a short illustrative game showing the key three-player dynamics: parallel development, the temptation to attack early, and a cascading checkmate finish.

Moves 1–2 · Parallel development

Gold opens by pushing a central pawn, claiming space toward the middle of the board. Azure mirrors with a similar central push from her own back rank, and Crimson does likewise. All three armies develop knights and bishops in parallel. After two ply per player, the position is symmetric: nobody has committed to a target, nobody has fallen behind.

Move 3 · The early-attack temptation

Gold sees a tactical opportunity: Azure has briefly left a knight undefended. If Gold captures, he wins material. But the trade costs Gold a move's worth of tempo. And Crimson gets a free developing move while Gold and Azure tangle. Gold declines the capture and instead develops his queen toward the centre.

This is the central judgement of three-player chess: a good move against one opponent can be the wrong move overall. Patience is more rewarded than in two-player chess.

Move 4 · The triangle shifts

Azure, who's now a hair behind on development, decides to apply pressure to Crimson's king-side. Crimson must defend, which costs Crimson tempo. Gold has stayed out of the exchange and is now the most-developed of the three. The asymmetry was caused by Azure's choice to engage. And by Gold's choice to stay out of it.

Moves 5–6 · The pre-cascade

Gold posts a rook on an open file and a bishop along its long diagonal, building pressure on the squares that both Azure's and Crimson's kings depend on for safety. He hasn't directly threatened either king yet. He's threatening their escape squares.

Move 7 · Cascading checkmate

Gold moves a knight into a square that simultaneously:

• delivers a discovered check from the rook to Azure's king, and
• forks Crimson's king and Crimson's queen.

Both kings have no legal way out. Cascading checkmate. Gold wins outright on a single move. This is what 3Chess makes possible: a strong player can win, not just choose whom to gift the win to. Classical three-player chess almost never allows it.

If the cascade never lands

Most games don't end this cleanly. If no player finds a cascading mate, the game eventually triggers one of the four draw conditions above (threefold repetition, the 20-move rule, insufficient material, or two-player stalemate). Territory then decides the result. Gold's patience earlier in the game would still have paid off. His pieces cover more empty cells than either rival, so on territory he'd come out ahead. Either way, the game ends with a clear winner determined by play, not by anyone's choice of who to lose to.

11 · What's different from regular chess

• Three players, one board. Every threat you make changes the balance between the other two. That's the central tension of the whole game.
• Hex geometry. Six neighbours instead of four. Pieces re-expressed accordingly. Three colour classes instead of two. The pawn moves into a pair of cells and captures on its outer flanks.
• Eliminated players linger. A mated player's pieces don't vanish. They sit as neutral obstacles you can still capture.
• Draws become territory contests. Repetition, the 20-move rule, insufficient material, two-player stalemate: none of them tie the game. They hand it to whoever controls more of the board.
• Designed against the "kingmaker" problem. See three-player chess and the essay The kingmaker problem.

The in-game Learn screen (☰ menu → Learn, or ESC → Learn during a game) is the same ruleset with visual aids: the board map, per-piece move overlays, the pawn-facing diagram.

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