How Does Four Player Chess Work?

People often steer away from chess variants because they could be too complicated. The truth is, some of them are easy to learn and provide a great twist on the classic game. In the case of Four Player Chess, the rules are pretty simple to get to grips with, and once you learn a few strategies, you can quickly improve at the game. 

Four-player chess is a great variant because it combines the complexity and competition of the original with the fun and social side of multiplayer board games. Once you learn how to play the game and a few strategies, you’ll be ready to get started with this variant. 

Intro to Four Player Chess

A four-player variant of chess has been around for most of chess's history. Chaturaji, which translates to Four Kings, is an Indian game approximately 1000 years old. It features four players with similar pieces and movements. Of course, there are plenty of differences as well. For example, it lacks the cross-shaped board of modern four-player chess.

Today, Four-Player is one example of a group of multiplayer chess games that also includes variants like Bughouse. It has plenty of different forms and rulebooks, which you can modify to create a custom chess variant. What unites them is the number of players and the unique chessboard. 

Four Player Chess can be played at home as a multiplayer board game, on online platforms like Chess.com, and even in tournaments. 

The Rules

Four-player chess can involve some pretty complicated strategies and crazy positions. There are many versions of the rules and different ways to play. Fortunately, some are quite simple. Essentially, they are expanded chess rules with the same piece movement, but different ways to win and account for the multiple players. 

The Board and Set-Up

All versions of four-player chess require a specialized board. The center is the standard 8×8 chessboard, but on each side, 3 additional rows extend outwards. As such, it resembles a thick cross, like so:

You can buy various types of four-player chess boards, including plenty of affordable options. In a pinch, you can modify a standard chess set as long as you have at least two full sets of pieces. This is easiest with thin boards made of soft material like vinyl or silicone, which you can overlap to create the cross shape. 

To set up Four Player Chess, you place the pieces on the extended portions of the board. They are arranged just as they would be in regular chess with the same relative starting positions, and queens on their own color.

The idea behind the setup is that the center of the board becomes a chess battle royal with each player defending a separate fortress. 

How to Play

How to play depends on the setting (online or over-the-board) and which version you choose; Free For All and Teams are the most common. Rules vary, and there is little standardization in the game. Below are the rules commonly used online.

Free For All 

As the name implies, in Free For All (FFA), everyone competes for themselves. The goal is to have the most points at the end of the game. You can easily change or simplify the following rules for in-person games.

One of the main ways you gain points is by capturing pieces. The pieces' value mostly corresponds to the chess value system, with a few differences:

• Pawns = 1 Point (even when promoted)
• Queen = 9 Points
• Bishops = 5 Points
• Rooks = 5 Points
• Knights = 3 Points

Other ways to gain points include:

• Checkmating an opponent (20 points)
• Stalemating yourself (10 points)
• Stalemating an opponent (10 points for each player still in the game)
• Checking multiple kings simultaneously (1 point for 2 kings and 20 points for 3 kings)

To promote a pawn, you have to make it to the middle of the board (the eighth rank). If this sounds easy, remember that this is where four players are battling it out. 

To be out of the game:

• You can resign
• Run out of time
• Have no possible moves (stalemate)
• Be checkmated

When you are out, your pieces stay on the board, but capturing them doesn’t provide points to other players. In the Chess.com version, the pieces change from a bright color to grey.

If the player resigns or runs out of time, their king stays active and moves at random. This gives the other players the opportunity to checkmate or stalemate it and get the usual points. 

Games can end in draws (by threefold repetition, insufficient material, or the 50-move rule). When this happens, active players each receive 10 points. 

For the game to end, three players need to be eliminated. Or, there needs to be only two players remaining with a gap of 21 points between them. 

Teams

The team version of the game is a little less common, but the rules are simpler. 

As the name implies, in Teams, you work with a partner to win. You are always paired with the player sitting opposite you on the board. Together, you can plan your strategy, suggest moves, and coordinate positions. However, in some in-person versions of the game, communication is prohibited. 

The goal of the game is to checkmate one of the opposing players. Promotion takes place on the 11th rank instead of the 8th, and in this version, underpromotion is possible. 

A key difference is that checkmate only comes into effect on your turn. As such, your teammate can potentially defend you from it by capturing or blocking the attacking piece.

Games can also end by resignation, losing on time, or stalemate.

Strategy and Differences

You’ve got the rules down. Now the question becomes, how do I win? In both Free For All and Teams, there are a few key strategies and ideas to help you win. 

Remember that all of your fundamental chess skills, from calculation to visualization, still apply. What changes are some of the familiar theories and rules, like bishops being better than rooks.

Here are a few strategies and concepts that differ from conventional chess. Note that the first two tips apply to most versions of Four Player Chess, but the others are focused on the more strategically tricky Free For All variation. 

Early Queen Development 

Generally, in normal chess, bringing out your queen in the first few moves is dangerous. Your opponent can threaten the queen while also developing their pieces with tempo.

The difference with Four Player Chess is that there is much more space on the board. It is not nearly as easy for your opponents to chase the queen away to bad squares. As such, it is often a great strategy to develop your queen quickly and look to create some immediate problems for your opponents. From an attacking perspective, your queen can be effective very early on, creating unexpected threats across the board against multiple opponents. 

Over-Powered Bishops

Another side effect of the larger board and having players on all sides is the increased importance of the diagonals. This increases the bishops' importance. Compared to rooks that can often only attack one player, with an easy developing move, bishops attack players’ forces on either side of you.

A key to winning is understanding how you can maximize attacks on multiple players. One strategy is to plan how to position your bishops so they are both defensive and attacking. 

Shoot for Promotion 

A good strategy is to focus on pawn promotion. If you can develop a plan for how to march your pawns forward, especially if the other players are largely targeting each other, you can often sneakily get an extra queen on the board. This will almost always convert into points through captures, checks, and checkmates. 

How you do this depends on how a position develops. The key is to create a strong defensive structure and push the right pawns at the right moments.

Trades and One-on-One Battles

Trade carefully and avoid exchanges for their own sake. One mistake beginners tend to make is focusing only on one other player. While this may seem to make your calculations easier, it leaves you vulnerable to attacks from other players. 

Additionally, if you trade pieces with one player, you gain some points but lose out in the long run. This is because you have fewer pieces to work with, making you much less likely to capture the opponent’s pieces or create checkmates. 

Group Attacks

While it may be a bad idea to only focus on one other player in Four Player Chess, sometimes it is a good idea to join a group attack against a single player. This is often how battle-royale games take place. One player will be attacked, put under pressure, and sometimes eliminated, leaving the others to battle it out. 

Often, it is a strategically good idea to join this attack. The vulnerable player’s pieces are up for grabs, and if you join quickly, you may be the one to deliver checkmate and get the points.

Four Player Chess: The Social Game

Chess brings people together at clubs, parks, and events. It’s a social game because of the competition, spectatorship, and shared interest. However, the game itself is about a one-on-one battle. The great thing about Four Player Chess is that it takes many of the things that make the original version enjoyable and puts them in the context of a more social game. Over-the-board, Four-Player is chaotic, challenging, and fun with rivalries and alliances, comebacks, and dynamic positions. Give the game a go online or in person and see how well chess works with more players.