Chess Terms
XXL Chess

XXL Chess

If you're one to enjoy grandiose battles with fantastic beasts and mighty armies, XXL Chess might be your true calling.

Here's everything you need to learn about XXL Chess:


What Is XXL Chess?

XXL Chess is a chess variant where players face each other on a 14x14 board. In this variant, players don't have queens but start the game with five other pieces, as you can see below:

XXL Chess
The oversized board is home to a host of new pieces.

What Are The Rules To XXL Chess?

The rules of XXL Chess are almost the same as regular chess. The only difference lies in the lack of a queen and the presence of five new pieces:

Camel: moves similarly to a knight, but one square further—one square orthogonally to one direction, and three squares orthogonally at a right angle.

The camel in XXL Chess
The camel in XXL Chess.

General: combines the movement of the king and the knight.

The general in XXL Chess
The general in XXL Chess.

Hawk: combines the movement of the bishop and the knight.

The hawk in XXL Chess
The hawk in XXL Chess.

Elephant: combines the movement of the rook and the knight.

The elephant in XXL Chess
The elephant in XXL Chess.

Amazon: the most powerful piece of all! It combines the movement of the queen and the knight.

The amazon in XXL Chess
The amazon in XXL Chess.

While the only difference is in the game's pieces, there are two details you should notice. The first is that pawns promote on the eighth rank for White and seventh for Black since the board is 14 squares long. The second is that castling works differently, with the king moving over more squares than in regular chess. You can see the final positions for queenside and kingside castling below:

Castling in XXL Chess
You have to drag your king on top of the rook to castle in XXL Chess.

How To Play XXL Chess Online

It's easy to play XXL Chess on Chess.com. You can do it by going to our Variants page, selecting the "Other" tab, and clicking on XXL Chess.

Play XXL Chess online
Go to our Variants page to play XXL Chess.

Conclusion

You now know what XXL Chess is, how its new pieces move, its rules, and how to play it online. Click the button below to see how you handle this great army!

Play XXL Chess

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