Grand chess

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Grand chess starting position. The marshall and cardinal are to the right of White's king.

Grand chess is a popular[1] large-board chess variant invented by Dutch games designer Christian Freeling in 1984.[2] It is played on a 10×10 board, with each side having two additional pawns and two new pieces: the marshall and the cardinal.

A superficial similarity exists between Grand chess and an early version of the historic chess variant Capablanca chess because the same pieces and game board are used. But differences in initial start position, rules governing pawn moves and promotion, and castling make them significantly different games.

A series of Grand chess Cyber World Championship matches was sponsored by the Dutch game site Mindsports. Past title holders included R. Wayne Schmittberger (1998, 1999) and John Vehre (2001). Grand chess tournaments were held annually beginning in 1998 by the (now defunct) correspondence game club kNights Of the Square Table (NOST).[3]

Contents
This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Rules

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White's major pieces are set up on the first and second ranks as shown in the diagram. White's pawns are set up on the third rank. The white rooks alone are positioned on the first rank, which makes it easier for them to activate earlier in the game since they are not blocked by the other pieces as they are in standard chess. The black rooks are placed the same, for the same advantage. Black's major pieces are set up on the ninth and tenth ranks, and Black's pawns are set up on the eighth rank.

A white pawn may elect to either promote or remain a pawn upon reaching the eighth and ninth ranks, but must promote upon reaching the tenth rank. Unlike standard chess, a pawn may be promoted only to a previously captured piece of the same color. (So, it is illegal for either side to have two queens, or two marshalls, or three rooks, etc.) If no captured piece is available for promoting a white pawn about to reach the tenth rank, the pawn must stay on the ninth rank, but it can still give check.

Similarly, a black pawn promotes optionally upon reaching the third and second ranks, but must promote in order to move to the first rank. It can still give check from the second rank to a white king on the first rank, even if it can't yet legally move to the first rank.

As in standard chess, pawns can move one or two squares on their first move, and they may also capture en passant.

As in chess, checkmate is a win and stalemate is a draw. But there is no castling in Grand chess.[4]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Hans Bodlaender and John William Brown. "Christian Freeling's Grand Chess". The Chess Variants server. http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/freeling.html. Retrieved 2008-12-13. 
  2. ^ Dylan Loeb McClain (2007-08-19). "Giraffes, Viziers and Wizards: Variations on the Old Game". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/crosswords/chess/19chess.html. Retrieved 2008-12-07. 
  3. ^ Formed in 1960 by Bob Lauzon and Jim France, NOST held an annual convention and enjoyed several hundred active members (Pritchard 1994:210).
  4. ^ "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)

References

External links