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Ponderchess / Chess variants

Grand Chess

Christian Freeling’s large-board chess: a 10×10 board, a marshal and a cardinal, and pawns that can promote only to pieces you have lost.
Created
1984
Creator
Christian Freeling
Where
Netherlands
Board
10×10
What changes
10×10 board, two new pieces

Where it came from

Well documented

The Dutch game designer Christian Freeling published Grand Chess in 1984. It adds Capablanca’s two compound pieces, here called the marshal and cardinal, on a 10×10 board.

Its promotion rule is distinctive: a pawn can promote only to a piece of its own side that has already been captured, which keeps armies from snowballing.

Why it was made: A more spacious, richer chess that keeps familiar strategy.

How it differs from chess

  • New piecesThe marshal moves like a rook or a knight; the cardinal like a bishop or a knight.
  • SetupRooks start in the corners of the first rank, the other pieces on the second rank, and pawns on the third. There is no castling.
  • PromotionPawns may promote on the eighth or ninth rank and must on the tenth, but only to a previously captured piece of their own side.

Questions

Why can’t pawns promote to a queen whenever they like?
Freeling limited promotion to captured pieces so a player can never have more of a piece than they started with.

Sources

  • D. B. Pritchard, The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (2nd ed., ed. John Beasley, 2007)
  • Wikipedia: Grand chess