Dynamo Chess keeps almost everything you already know about chess — check, checkmate, stalemate, en passant, castling — and changes three things: the size of the board, the number of pieces, and the addition of one genuinely new piece. Watch the difference in under a minute:

Side by side

The Dynamo piece

The Dynamo — also called the Missile — is the first genuinely new chess piece of the modern era. Each player starts with two, placed beside the King and Queen. On every single turn, you choose how it moves: diagonally like a Bishop, or in an L-shaped leap like a Knight, jumping clean over other pieces.

It is valued at 7 points, sitting between the Rook (5) and the Queen (9). And a lone Dynamo can checkmate a cornered King entirely on its own — something no single piece can do in classical chess.

Why the differences matter

Because the 10×10 board, the extra pawns and the two Dynamo pieces mean none of classical chess’s opening theory applies, no player walks in with a memorisation advantage. Every game starts from zero, so the player who thinks most clearly and creatively wins — not the one who has studied the most lines.

If you already play chess, you are not learning a new game. You are learning one new piece and a bigger board. Most players pick it up within minutes.