The Giant Chess Clock Built for Judit Polgár's Festival

A giant chess set on a gallery floor needs a clock you can read from across the room. So I built one: a single piece in walnut and oak, with two dials, red flags and a button for each player, made for the 2026 Judit Polgár Global Chess Festival.

By Michał Fudalej, FIDE Master (FIDE profile) and founder of ChessboArt.

~7 min read

Why a giant board needs a clock

On September 26, 2026, the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest hosted the 12th Judit Polgár Global Chess Festival, which drew about 5,000 visitors according to the foundation's own report. The theme was critical thinking, or in short: think before you move. Among the attractions was a giant chess set laid out on the gallery floor, and a giant board raises a question nobody asks until the first game: where does the clock go?

A standard tournament clock beside pieces that size would look like an afterthought. So, months earlier, I agreed with Judit's team on something different: a clock built to order, for this festival and this board.

Classic on the outside, quiet on the inside

For me there was never a question: a clock like this should have hands. It is beautiful, it is symbolic, and showing that kind of object is what I do. Chess clocks were first used in a tournament in London in 1883, and the classic wooden version, with two dials, hands, flags and a button for each player, is still the picture most people have in mind. On a giant board it matters even more: hands can be read at a glance from a distance, and a wooden case sits among gallery walls far more comfortably than a digital display. So I took that clock as my model and made it bigger.

It measures 72 × 37 × 18 cm (about 28 × 14.5 × 7 inches), roughly three times the width of a standard tournament clock. The case is walnut with an oak front, and the light wooden dials carry the ChessboArt logo, each in a metal rim.

It started as a walnut panel with drilled openings.

The case, sanded and still unfinished.

The finished clock in a red-walled room of the gallery.

And in a quieter corridor.

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The hardest part was the variety. This was a project for one piece, so there was no routine to lean on: carpentry, cutting, gluing and painting for the case, 3D printing for the red flag and for the rotating indicator that shows whose clock is running, and then electronics, wiring and the testing of the whole thing. Everything had to work together, look like a real chess clock, and above all work. It took dozens of hours, and a good part of that was waiting: for glue to set, parts to arrive, prints to finish, paint and varnish to dry. The rest was tests and small fixes.

Inside, I made one honest compromise. Building a large wind-up mechanical clock today would be a project of its own, so I chose electronics and existing parts, which is simpler and cheaper. The movement is battery-powered, so there is no spring to wind and no tick. A purist will miss the sound.

Everything else follows a classic clock. You press your button, your clock stops and your opponent's starts, and the indicator shows who is running. The minute hand counts the time, and when it passes 12, the flag falls and time is up. The hour hand matters less, though both clocks should start in the same position, which counts in long games. In a five-minute game you simply play until a flag falls.

Then they played

I delivered the clock the day before the festival, together with our other boards for the event, among them the ChessboArt800 and the ChessClub. That was exactly the plan. Judit's team was happy to see it arrive, though at first they were not sure it was running. The indicator that shows whose clock is ticking turns like a second hand, so it takes a moment to notice that anything is moving. Once they did, everything worked.

A clock is only a clock once someone plays against it. On the giant board, Judit Polgár and grandmaster Zoltán Almási played as one team against her sister Sofia and Sofia's husband, grandmaster Yona Kosashvili. Two sisters on opposite sides, a grandmaster partner each, one giant board and the clock beside it.

The pieces moved, the hands moved and the crowd leaned in. Through the rest of the day, families and school groups took turns at the same set while the clock kept time beside them. The best thing a clock can do is stay out of the way of the game, and this one did.

That evening, at a closed get-together after the festival, I had a chance to talk with Judit. She told me the clock had proved itself.

Is it the largest chess clock in the world?

Could this be the largest classic chess clock ever made? I think it might be. By classic I mean a clock with hands, a flag and a wooden case, not an oversized digital display. I searched and found no larger one, but I cannot prove that none exists. Guinness World Records has no category for chess clocks, so there is no official title to point to. For now it is a possibility, not a record.

If you know of a bigger one, write to me. I would like to see it.

More from the day is in our report from Global Chess Festival 2026. If clocks are your thing, the complete guide to chess clocks covers their history, types and restoration.

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