Modern chess

Modern chess is a chess variant played on a nine by nine board, invented in 1968 by the Spanish player Gabriel Vicente Maura. The game keeps the full set of standard chess pieces and rules but adds an extra pawn per side and a new piece called the prime minister, which combines the moves of a bishop and a knight. The inaugural game was played on March 18, 1968, in Madrid, at a cafe inside the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, with Maura playing White against Bonifacio Pedraz Cabezas. Modern chess keeps all the standard rules of chess while introducing its own modifications, including two separate castling options, one toward the ministerside and one toward the queenside, and it allows a promoting pawn to become either a conventional chess piece or a prime minister once it reaches the final rank. As a chess-family variant, it belongs among the many recorded attempts to expand the classic eight by eight game onto a larger board with additional pieces and options while preserving its core strategic character.