Embassy chess

Embassy Chess is the tournament name used for Grand Chess, a large-board chess variant invented by the Dutch game designer Christian Freeling in 1984. It is played on a ten by ten board, with each side fielding two additional pawns beyond the standard chess set and two new piece types, the marshal, which combines the moves of a rook and a knight, and the cardinal, which combines the moves of a bishop and a knight. Pawns start on the third rank rather than the second, and there is no castling. A pawn that reaches the eighth or ninth rank may choose to promote immediately or continue advancing as a pawn, but a pawn reaching the tenth and final rank must promote; promotion is limited to pieces already captured from the board, so a player can never hold two queens or two of any other piece at once. The chess expert and grandmaster Larry Kaufman has praised the design as an excellent game, citing its larger board and expanded piece set as adding real strategic depth beyond that of standard chess. The game is played by two players.