GraphViz dot file. Node as Chess order

Question

I have the following graph (and accompanying dot file)

digraph G { 
  a -> c; 
  a -> d; 
  a -> q; 
  a -> x;
  a -> qp; 
}

I want to organize the nodes in the graph "chess style view", like this:

How can this be achieved?

Answer 1

Depending on what exactly your finally after, an other layout algorithm could work for you:

neato -Tpng yourgraph.gv

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The unflatten utility may be a more appropriate solution in some cases:

unflatten -f -l 2 yourgraph.gv | dot -Tpng -o unflattened.png