Big chess

Introduction

Big Chess is an abstract strategy board game for two players. It is played on a square board of sixteen rows (called ranks) and sixteen columns (called files), giving 256 squares of alternating color. Each player begins the game with 32 pieces, which are progressively eliminated (captured and removed from the board by opposing pieces) as the game proceeds. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent. This occurs when no further move can prevent the king from being captured.

Big chess has been invented by Thibault de Vassal in 2006, when creating FICGS correspondence chess server. Looking for an anti-computer chess variant, more complex than Fischer Random Chess, the idea was to bring the Western Chess game closer to the game of Go, without randomizing the start position.

Overview of the game

Big Chess is played on a square board of sixteen rows (called ranks) and sixteen columns (called files), giving 256 squares of alternating color, light and dark, with each player having a light square at the bottom-right corner when facing the board. Each player begins the game with 32 pieces which can move, like in chess, in defined directions (and in some instances, limited range) and can remove other pieces from the board: each player's pieces comprise sixteen pawns, six knights, four bishops, four rooks, one queen and one king. Rules are the same than in western chess, except castling is not possible.

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