4PC - Dictionary

Here is a list of terms commonly found within the 4 player chess community. This list will be updated as more terms emerge into the communal lexicon, or if the community votes to change the word, or meaning, of a particular concept.

Move - An individual action made by an individual player on the board.

Ply - 4 moves or 1 complete rotation of the board. Usually referring to a round of moves.

Quack - When the Queen is under attack.

TempiCheck - A measure of distance for how far away a piece, pawn or player is (in moves) from giving check on an enemy King.

Stability (Teams) - A measure of how evenly distributed a teams forces are between their players. A team with low stability will have more of their forces with one teammate than the other. Strategically speaking, if both teams have equal material but one team has a low stability then the team with more balanced forces should do better because they have more freedom of choice and movement.

Kings move mate (Teams) - If the player right of the checkmated can move his King and it is still checkmate on the next player, then this is a Kings move mate. Essentially it does not matter what move R plays as almost any move except for something that directly sabotages the checkmate will lead to victory.

Wait Mate (Teams) - Similar to Kings move mate, but also includes scenarios where the player right of the checkmated can't move his/her King. Essentially means a scenario where almost any move, particularly those that do not affect the mating sequence, will lead to checkmate for the next player.

RY (or R/Y) - Shorthand for Red-Yellow Team.
BG (or B/G) - Shorthand for Blue-Green Team.

P - The player of focus.
L - The player to the Left of the focal player.
O - The player opposite the focal player.
R - The player to the right of the focal player.

The PLOR system is used to describe players in terms of their relative positions to each other and not purely on their colour. This is useful, for example, when defining traps or mating sequences.

Did you agree with the terms on this list? Is there anything you think we have missed? Let us know in the comments below and join our community for study and naming 4pc related concepts.