How Does Four Player Chess Work

Chess, a game of wits, strategy, and knowledge between two minds. But what if more than two people want to play? You may have heard of Four Player Chess before, or seen it in an eye-catching YouTube thumbnail. The game itself looks fascinating. We are so used to average chess positions that mashing together two sets of pieces on an oddly shaped board grabs your attention. But how do you play?

What is Four Player Chess

When you think of four-player chess, you might picture four people huddled around one chessboard. Wrong. Four-player chess requires a special board and different-colored pieces. The game uses a special board, usually an 8×8 square with three rows of eight cells extending from each side. When you first set it up, the board can feel overwhelming. How do you even begin to play a game like this? First, if you are brand new to chess, I encourage you to master piece movement, check, checkmate, etc., before you start. Four-player chess is hard enough for seasoned players, and if you are new to chess, it just adds too many new factors before you are used to the regular game. 

The History of Four-Player Chess

Variations of four-handed chess have existed for years. Which makes sense. If you put chess sets next to each other, it is understandable that bored chess players over the years might find ways to move pieces from one board to the other. The modern four-player game has been played for more than 200 years and appears in different parts of Europe. The Four-Handed Chess Club, founded by George Hope Lloyd-Verney in London in 1884, is widely regarded as the most well-known historical version. 

Gameplay of Four-Player Chess

Gameplay can be team-based, usually with partners seated across from each other, or free-for-all, with each player seeking a decisive advantage and no fixed alliances. Free-for-all games can be played for points until only one player remains, or until the first checkmate. Under FFA (Free for all) rules, table talk, including suggesting moves, is not allowed; players must decide for themselves who to attack, when, and how.

Watching Others Play

Maybe more than regular chess, watching experienced players play four-player chess can help if you are new to the variant. If you want to play a four-player game but don’t feel confident about how it works, sit back and watch a few games as others explain it to you. You can also do this online by looking up chess players or streamers who have played four-player online. That's a great way to familiarize yourself with this variant and learn the game's nuances.

Types of Four-Player Chess

There are two main ways to play Four-Player chess. You can play a free-for-all version where each player is on their own team and is fighting only for their own army, or you can play teams. In the team version, two players collaborate to outsmart the other team. This is a unique way to play chess and opens up lots of fun strategies. In online play, teammates can easily share ideas using arrows drawn on the board and private messages, while keeping the team's plans hidden from opponents.

Starting Positions

One confusing element of Four-Player chess is the starting position and the board itself. First, each player's queen begins on a black square. If you are used to setting up a regular board, this might confuse you. In the online variation, the red pieces begin first, and the turn order proceeds clockwise.

Free-for-All 4 Player Chess

In free-for-all, the objective is to be the last player standing or to score the most points. So, how do you get points? 

• Checkmate (+20)
• Getting stalemated (+20)
• By stalemating an opponent (+10 for each player still in the game)
• If you give check to more than one king simultaneously with a queen (+1 for two kings, +5 for three)
• Simultaneously checking multiple kings with a piece other than a queen (+5 for two kings, +20 for three)
• By capturing active pieces (+1 for a pawn or promoted queen, +3 for a knight, +5 for a bishop, +5 for a rook, and +9 for a queen)

Elimination

Players are eliminated when they’re checkmated or stalemated. Their pieces remain on the board but become inactive, and capturing inactive pieces doesn’t earn any points. To win at Four-Player chess, make sure you stay alive! The game wraps up once three players have been eliminated. When playing for points, it ends when only one player remains or when the remaining players reach a stalemate.

Tips for Four-Person Chess

If you are new to Four-Player chess, you may need a few games to get the hang of it. Try to avoid trading all of your pieces even if it would be a good move in a normal two-player game. When you trade pieces, only two of the four players are affected, so it can leave you weak and vulnerable to other attacks. Also, remember to watch the players on your left and right, even if the player directly across from you feels like your biggest threat. As in regular chess, you always have to keep your eyes open and be ready for any long-range attack.

Promotion and Endgame

In teams, pawns promote on the 11th rank, and you can choose to underpromote. The goal is to checkmate one member of the opposing team. If the game ends in stalemate, it’s a draw. A player can also end the game by resigning or running out of time. In free-for-all, the pawns promote to a queen on the 8th rank.

Where to Play Four Player Chess

Four Player Chess is not the easiest game to find a way to play. You can pick up a four-player set and have the most interesting board at your next chess meetup! But part of the beauty of online chess is that it removes the barrier to entry of a physical board. If you want to try four-player chess, you can do so easily online. Four-player is just one of many variants that websites like Chess.com want you to try. Four-player chess isn’t the only variant that lets four players play together, though. My favorite way for four people to play chess together is in a variant called “Bughouse.”

Bughouse

Bughouse is a chess variant played by four people in two-player teams. Teammates work together to checkmate an opponent or run out their time. When you capture one of your opponent's pieces, you hand it to your teammate, who can then choose to place it down instead of making a normal chess move. The added tactical element of placing down pieces, along with the fun of playing with a teammate, makes bughouse one of the most popular chess variants.

Four-Player Chess and Bughouse as a Learning Tool

In my opinion, a game like Bughouse has more practical learning advantages than something like Four-Player Chess. While Four-Player still lets you practice basic piece movement and calculation, Bughouse forces you to think outside the box and imagine pieces being placed at any moment. That means calculating tons of checks every turn if you know your opponent has a piece like a knight to drop on the board. Bughouse has always been very popular in chess classes I have taught because it breaks students out of the boring, stuffy way chess is normally played and introduces a more chaotic element.

Should You Play Chess Variants?

If you are new to chess, or you are a parent of a chess student, you might wonder whether or not you should spend time playing chess variants. At the end of the day, playing chess and having fun is what will help a player improve. If playing Four Player chess helps you to have more fun with the game of chess, and gets you calculating interesting lines, then it is worth doing. But if all you play is four-player chess, don’t expect to excel at your next over-the-board classical tournament. I always tell students to practice the way you want to play. Are you going to be playing against a real human in your next tournament? Then don’t only play bots. Are you trying to win a classical tournament? Then don’t only play bullet chess.

Have Fun

Ultimately, Four Player chess is a fun variant that brings life to a game that might feel stale. Try it online, or pick up a four-player chess set. It will always draw attention and get interest once the board is set up. Chess is always more enjoyable when you treat it with the joy it should have. So have fun, and try out a new variant.