Велики Шах
Overview
Grand Chess is a variant of Chess invented by Christian Freeling in 1984.

Board

Grand  Chess is played on a 10x10 board.  Both players have two more pawns and two new pieces (the Marshall and the Cardinal) in addition to the common chess pieces.  The initial position of the pieces is shown in the following picture:

 

Objective

The goal of  Grand Chess is the same as in standard Chess, i.e. to attack the opponent's King in such a way that the opponent cannot escape from the attack and cannot block it on his next turn.

Play

All chess pieces move the same as in standard Chess, however one rule is excluded from Grand Chess: there is no castling in the game.

The new pieces (Marshall and Cardinal) introduced in Grand Chess move as follows:

The Marshall can move both as a Rook and a Knight

The Cardinal can move both as a Bishop and a Knight

 

The promotion of pawns also differs from standard Chess:

  • White pawn may either remain a pawn or promote to a queen, rook, bishop, marshall, cardinal or knight of the same color upon reaching the 8th or 9th row.  A Black pawn may do the same on the 3rd or 2nd rows respectively.
  • Unlike standard Chess, promoted pawns can only be replaced by any previously captured piece of the same color.  (I.e. it is illegal for either player to have two queens or two marshalls or three rooks, etc.)
  • Upon reaching the 10th row a White pawn must promote.  If no captured pieces are available to replace the White pawn, then the pawn must stay on the 9th row (but it can still give a check to the Black king).  The same goes for the Black pawn reaching the 1st row.

The game ends by a checkmate or a stalemate as in standard Chess.

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