Grand Chess starting setup. Marshals are on f2/f9; cardinals are on g2/g9.
Grand Chess is a large-board chess variant invented by Dutch games designer Christian Freeling in 1984.[1][2] It is played on a 10×10 board, with each side having two additional pawns and two new pieces: the marshal and the cardinal.
Grand Chess uses the same pieces as the earlier variant Capablanca chess, but differs in board size, start position, rules governing pawn moves and promotion, and castling.
A series of Grand Chess Cyber World Championship matches was sponsored by the Dutch game site Mindsports.[a] Grand Chess tournaments were held annually beginning in 1998 by the (now defunct) correspondence game club NOST.[b]Larry Kaufman has written that Grand Chess "really is an excellent game and deserves a bigger following".[3]
Grand Chess set ordered from Christian Freeling's MindSports website
The pieces are placed on the players' first and second ranks, respectively, with the rooks alone on the players' first ranks. The pawns are placed on the players' third ranks. Since the rooks are not blocked as much by the other pieces as in standard chess, it is easier for them to activate earlier in the game.
A pawn that reaches a player's eighth or ninth ranks can elect to either promote or remain a pawn, but it must promote upon reaching the tenth rank. Unlike standard chess, a pawn may be promoted only to a captured piece of the same colour. (So, it is impossible for either side to own two queens, or two marshals, or three rooks, etc.) If, and for as long as, no captured piece is available to promote to, a pawn on a player's ninth rank must stay on the ninth rank, but it can still give check.
As in standard chess: pawns can move one or two squares on their first move; pawns can capture en passant; checkmate is a win; stalemate is a draw. There is no castling in Grand Chess.[c]
Play examples
Vehre vs. Schmittberger, 2001
a
b
c
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g
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10
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1
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a
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Final position after 29.Mxe8
Played between John Vehre and R. Wayne Schmittberger at the 2001 Grand Chess Cyber Championship Final:[4]
Embassy chess is a variant of Grand Chess created in 2005 by Kevin Hill. It borrows the opening setup from Grand Chess and adapts it to the 10×8 board. Except for the setup, the rules are as per Capablanca chess.[5]
^NOST (kNights of the Square Table), formed in 1960 by Bob Lauzon and Jim France, held an annual convention and enjoyed several hundred active members (Pritchard 1994:210).
^"We're so used to castling that we tend to forget that it is the weirdest move in Chess, implemented specifically to solve a problem. Chess turned out a great game despite its problem, but it needed an ad hoc fix to do so. In grand chess, pawns retain their usual distance and rooks are free from the onset, so the problem doesn't exist in the first place." (Freeling)
^Kaufman, Larry. "No Subject". Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. So Grand chess, despite its meager following, scores an amazing 6 1/4 out of 8 on my criteria, by far the best so far. It really is an excellent game and deserves a bigger following.
Horne, Malcolm (Summer 1997). Jelliss, George P. (ed.). "Grand Chess: The Yerevan Games". Variant Chess. Vol. 3, no. 24. British Chess Variants Society. pp. 71–72. ISSN0958-8248.
The marshal (M) combines powers of a rook and a knight.
The cardinal (C) combines powers of a bishop and a knight.
