Grand Chess

Grand Chess, created by Christian Freeling in 1984, is played on a ten-by-ten board. Each side keeps the familiar pieces and adds a marshal and a cardinal. The starting army occupies more space than in ordinary chess, with the rooks remaining in the corners of the back rank.

Additional pieces

• The marshal combines rook and knight movement. On a turn it may slide as a rook or leap as a knight.
• The cardinal combines bishop and knight movement. On a turn it may slide as a bishop or leap as a knight.

These are compound pieces, meaning that one piece contains two complete movement patterns. Their moves match the chancellor and archbishop in Capablanca chess, although the names, board, and other rules differ.

The special promotion rule

A pawn may promote on reaching the eighth or ninth rank, meaning horizontal row, and must promote on reaching the tenth. Promotion means removing the pawn and replacing it with a piece of the same color. Grand Chess permits only the return of one of the player's pieces that the opponent has already captured. A new queen, rook, cardinal, or other eligible piece cannot be created if no such lost piece is available.

Optional promotion allows the pawn to remain a pawn on the eighth or ninth rank. If it tries to advance to the last rank while no captured piece is available for restoration, that advance is illegal. A pawn's future power is therefore tied to the army's earlier losses.

There is no castling, the special move that repositions the king and a rook together. The main objective remains familiar: attack the opposing king so that no legal reply exists, which is checkmate.