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Why at the top level do people strategically block players if they play badly. You haven't even offended them they just block you because you played badly. Feel like it really hurts the player base and stops players breaking into the top ratings

This must be the shortest game I've had where no player resigned. I just can't believe this game... edit: The game can be viewed here. 1. g4 d7 h11 l10 2. Ng2 Bxi14 Qxi14 Bm10 3. g5 Qb7 k12 Bl9+ 4. e3 Qxi14# ... Bxd1 5. Bxb5 e7 ... l8 6. Qxd1 f7 ... Qm8 7. Bxa4 g7 ... Ql7 8. Qxn11 Qh13+ ... Kn8 9. Qxn10+ h7=Q ... Qn9 10. Qxm11 Qd3 ... Qn10 11 Qxn10# Qf1# I don't really expect anyone to follow all the moves and there certainly were a lot of blunders, but just look at the final position where I played 11.Qxn10# to end this madness. Have anyone had a shorter game with 3 checkmates?

When a player resigns in the opening of the game, one of the remaining lucky players can capture the resigned king and gain an easy advantage. Perhaps it would be more fair if resigned kings offer +10 upon capture, and any player's resignation will take effect 10 moves after resigning. What are your thoughts?

Amazon is the strongest piece is chess, right? I trapped it in a Jail, like this.(Fog of war, Takeover and king of the hill) What do you think about this?

[StartFen4 "Y-0,0,0,0-1,1,1,0-1,1,1,0-0,0,0,0-0-x,x,x,yR,2,yK,3,yR,x,x,x/x,x,x,yP,bN,yP,1,yP,2,yP,x,x,x/x,x,x,2,yN,yP,1,yP,1,gQ,x,x,x/bR,bP,7,yP,4/3,bP,8,gP,1/bB,bP,9,gN,1,rQ/1,bP,9,yB,2/bK,1,bP,9,gP,gK/1,bP,10,gP,gB/1,bP,bN,9,gP,gN/bR,bP,10,gP,gR/x,x,x,2,rN,1,rP,rN,2,x,x,x/x,x,x,rP,rP,rP,2,rP,rP,rP,x,x,x/x,x,x,rR,3,rK,rB,1,rR,x,x,x"][Variant "Teams"][RuleVariants "EnPassant"][CurrentMove "0"][TimeControl "2 | 10"] From game #74108618

There have been some recent discussions regarding a possible default timer change for FFA. The current default timer is 1+7. This timer has a short start time but a long possible game time. If you are attacked at the beginning of the game you have very little time to think about the position. This gives the player attacked first a disadvantage. Then the potential game length is too long which we saw recently in the festival game which lasted hours 2.5 hours and 400+ moves. So it is clear that the 1 min start time is too short. You basically start the game in time trouble and stay that way throughout the game and the +7 increment is too long. Which has been realized by those in charge and an 8+2 timer was used for the festival final. This is an improvement but still not perfect as the +2 makes things a bit sharp at the end and makes playing on mobile difficult. So i think it would be good to discuss what is the best timer for FFA . 5+4 or 8+3 are possibilities but i'm not sure. A +3 or +4 increment seems logical. Any thoughts would appreciated.

best west

www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/74690841 Didn't lose a single piece

I still see a lot of poor understanding of how FFA should be played. I decided to write down here some things that I consider as merely basic, but I still see players even sometimes rated 2100-2200 who play against some principles. And maybe some 1800-2100 players will learn from that as well and spare a lot of time and games; I would've been happy to read something like that 3 years ago! And it cost me 2000, 5000, 7000+ games to understand some things progressively (yes I know many brilliant players have been much faster in that). Some postulates first. I. Yes FFA means Free For All. But it doesn't mean "You should play bullsh$t just to get fun" and doesn't mean "you should attack any player at any moment because you're against 3 enemies". II. There are 3 stages in a FFA game (1st: 4 players, 2nd: 3 players, 3rd: 2 players). Every stage is clearly very distinct and who will eventually win will depend on how you play at every stage. I do not say that necessarily my way to apprehend it is the only correct (and my rating in FFA being still between 2300 and 2500 usually, is clearly certainly far too low in order to think that I am necessarily right), but I still believe that to play against some principles reduces your chances to win. Basically, the 1st stage is more or less Teams, the 2nd is more or less Solo, the 3rd is more or less classical chess. III. Everyone should play to win, and not play for 2nd (which is petty, cheap, mediocre) and not to play "to avoid being 4th" (unless really it becomes totally impossible to win, when for example you have an inexperienced player or a total imbecile in front who ruins the game). IV. One should play rationally and not emotionally, i.e. to be able to help an attack on R from G even if G ate your queen 2 moves earlier, etc. This being said, I think that it is important in the 1st stage of FFA not to attack the player in front, not to weaken him, not to eat anything from him, not even kill him, as all this is merely stupid and counterproductive. Even if you don't like him a lot for any reason. (Yes there are a few exceptions: for example if the next move is necessarily checkmate on your opposite, and you can do nothing to save him, so to get +20 yourself at least deprives your neighbour from taking it, and I am never ever angry against someone who kills me in such situation as it's rational and normal). One doesn't need necessarily to team up with the opposite player (but currently I see that it is clearly perceived as being the best strategy and therefore becomes such, as to play separately from your opp whereas the (common) neighbours cooperate 100%, means automatically 3rd and 4th place for you and your opp), but at least one can't weaken the opp and should do ALL to protect him, to save him, to release pressure from him sometimes, and even at cost of a bishop, a rook, a queen sometimes. (I know that's already obvious for any 2500+ player, but I see that many 2000-2200 players don't get it, hence these sentences). Cf. among other https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/to-betray-too-early-means-3rd-place-in-95-of-cases In the same time, one doesn't have to be naive, and even if cooperating fully and effectively with the opp in order to eliminate one flank, you still have to keep in mind the big picture and to avoid helping him too much: always think about "and what's afterwards?". To checkmate a player for example is not always the best move; sometimes you do and the situation just afterwards becomes very unfavourable for you if you take into account the material and the points and the time involved. If you help your opp too much, he takes the 1st place and you are 2nd or 3rd: silly. Also, in this 1st stage to trade is usually stupid: you simply help the other 2 players... Sometimes you have to, though. But in the long run, doing that, you clearly reduce your chances to win later. Some words about the tempo: if you play too passively, and only think about your defense, you won't win eventually, you'll finish usually 3rd or 2nd. But in the same time, if you bet everything on the attack, it makes your position very vulnerable and you could finish 1st (like many good blitzkriegers here) or 4th (like it happens to me quite often lol, as I take unfortunately too many risks and that's how I recently dropped again from 2500 to 2250/2350, but this thread is not about me and my personal flows that are numerous). This constant choice and quest of balance between attack and defense, between active and passive play, is extremely subtle and makes the game difficult. In the 2nd stage then, to continue necessarily in the same team, and even simply to team up with someone on a stable basis is low level, it only means 3rd place or 2nd at the best. I suggest you read the brilliant post from Sigma: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/1-15-ffa-2000-tutorial-balance-in-the-3-player-stage (and also https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/elaboration-on-ffa-tutorial-detailed-but-crucial-factors-to-take-into-consideration). The alliances here are (very) short-term and unstable. The 2nd stage (which is the most interesting I think) requires you continuously assess the (dynamically changing!) parameters: material, time, points, style of play of the 3 players still in game and the current position. That's the stage where the mistakes cost most. If you are 2nd, that usually means that you screwed up something in the 2nd stage precisely, not before, not after (whereas being 3rd or 4th is usually because you played the 1st stage incorrectly AND/OR had an idiot in front). To help too much is here silly; to remain married to another player is silly; to play emotionally is silly; to aim at punishing another player is silly; to play under influence of the previous situations is silly. That's where brilliant players are better than other ones. They have no complexes and help a player who attacked them 3 moves earlier, and attack a very close partner at some moment, etc. It's not about morality here but about the victory in a game (that one shouldn't take too seriously). To trade here is sometimes good when you have one player who is too strong in material and if you have significantly less points than the 3rd player. Also when you're low on time it simplifies the game as there are 2 pieces leaving the board and less to control mentally, and sometimes it helps you not to flag. But more generally, this 2nd stage is all about balance, and I thank again Sigma for his point quoted above. Read it. Well, as for the 3rd stage, there is nothing to say about actually, it's pretty obvious. One important point though is to try not to rush (especially when you are winning and are low on time), so many games finishing with stupid stalemates or even because you neglected some secondary pawn that suddenly becomes a queen, etc. To finish with, I believe that here psychology is extremely important, much more important than in 2p chess (and for some aspects 4p chess is closer to poker for example). Once you reach some level, you understand that a) you can't win alone in a 4p chess game, b) other players are very good as well, and c) the final outcome will depend on how you'll be (un)able to use them and to manipulate them, and to be used/manipulated too much yourself. It happened even to me (not a very strong player yet) to win sometimes just because I managed to push 2 (strong) players to fight between them (whereas I could develop calmly for some time, making another queen or building a better defense). That includes sometimes such things as to break a defense (sacrificing a piece) (something that Sigma also spoke about recently, cf. https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/elaboration-on-ffa-tutorial-detailed-but-crucial-factors-to-take-into-consideration, but I realised this my side and was applying this principle a lot for months before reading his article) or just to give an IDEA to another player (so many times I signalled thus to an opp something that he didn't see and that I can't say in the chat as it's against the chat rules) or simply to launch a signal of a joint attack (that you progressively stop your side 2-3 moves later, whereas the 2 protagonists continue to combat sometimes to death... and at least weaken each other) or just to make a diversion in order to hope to be safe from attacks for some time, etc. I shall maybe add some other ideas later, sorry for having certainly said many obvious things or for having expressed myself badly, English is not my mother tongue.

Btw, this is for @wolyn's Chaturaji Records project, if you know other special record-breaking games, type it in this forum!!! Also, @wolyn only allows rated games. I managed to win a game of Raji with only a lone king!!!!!!! On Move 15, Yellow has taken my only remaining pawn, which leaved me with only my king, but I somehow managed to pull this win off. I won with 31 points, scoring 16 of them with only my king, which is definitely some sort of record. https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturaji/game/71726760/ Current leaderboard: Here are some more records that @wolyn has found: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/a-historic-chaturaji-game (35 min+ Raji Game)

Hello chess folks It’s been a long time since I wrote about a topic but after a long break, in which I collected plenty of tacit knowledge, I have some promising insights for those who are interested in the finesses of FFA. In my last post I pointed out the most essential variables and divisions to help understand the main idea. A lot of players have improved ever since and the quality of the games have noticeably increased. Here in this particular subject I’m going to dive in into the lesser known factors that might seem as trivial details to the naked eye but once added up in a set or combination it becomes lethal. I will talk about : -Time pressure [important] -Emotional state of a player [more important] -Why breaking defence is worth sacrificing material [most important] -Correlation between King’s safety and victory [most important] The rate of significance of the above mentioned subtopics goes from important to most important. Each subtopic will then be divided in two structures. The internal focus and external focus meaning what you can do about it and what other players should do. Again I will use visual content to illustrate and make sure my point has been delivered properly. The names of the players have been blurred out as usual to prevent any personal attack. No disrespect nor humiliation is ever meant and cannot be tolerated. So without further ado, let’s start! Time pressure “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Leo Tolstoy Whenever time is of the essence a hotbed for mistakes is created. Being low on time causes you to lose accuracy in your moves and hence you become vulnerable. As a player you should always strive to make the best move within as less time as possible. If the latter is not possible you should take your time and strive for the best move anyway. Make one good move instead of 5 sloppy ones that could result in a possible checkmate on you. However, the angle I would like to cover is what you should do when another player is experiencing time deficiency. As you can see there is a double attack on red from both blue and green. If you remember from my last post I mentioned that you should keep a player long enough in the game to maintain a balance until the scale numbers in your favour. At this point the balance is distorted for green and beneficial for blue. He is leading in points and is about to have a queen. Thus green would be advised to not pressure red any further. At this point green makes a wise move and decides to retreat his knight from red’s camp. The reason why he does this instead of further attacking is because he needs red in the game to harass blue until a certain point. What would happen if he didn’t retreat and kept pressuring? Well, if green would have kept pressuring red with the possible help of blue, red might have run out of time. This is good for blue but bad for green. (Notice how both blue and green have sufficient time). Therefore the strategy for blue here is to pressure red and the strategy for green is to counterpressure blue to give red some breathing space. So this game is not merely attack and defend and queen up. Playing the game on a psychological level will help you better understand the moves of your opponents and anticipate their play. Emotional state of a player “Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.” Lawrence Douglas Wilder In a game it can happen that one player infiltrates your camp and the third player benefits from this. This makes many furious and causes them to lose control. Their chances of winning have been diminished so they seek payback at the cost of their own game. It is extremely difficult to keep yourself from the nudge to take revenge but this is a small yet key difference in success and failure. Most players who are higher rated (above 2800) have trained themselves to keep their composure and not lose their head under utmost pressure. This is one of the reasons why they are so great and stay great. At all times they seek for the most accurate move that can be played rather than going for a kamikaze. There are many examples of these kind of games and I am pretty sure you can find at least one in your own archives where you play the role of the kamikaze player. Analyse those games to help yourself better realize that it only leads to destruction of oneself. If you are willing to win you should embrace the path of the controlled warrior and subdue your anger. Victory will come to you. Also there is no point in expressing yourself in chat with some horrendous curses (yes, I am also guilty of this). Once the game is over there is nothing you can do to change it. Everything you can do is in the moment itself. Who cares what could have been or should have been done? The game is done and yes it could have been played better, definitely. People make mistakes and sometimes you get to pay the price but the only thing you can do is again keep your composure and focus on your own mistakes. Make this a habit in your own analysis and you will notice that your defence is more important than relying on another player. Just as you should know yourself on how you react to certain moves you should also learn to recognize a player. You can simply divide them into two kinds. There is the emotional player who is willing to give up his win to punish a player who has destroyed his chances of winning. These types of players don’t look at their own mistakes and pin the blame on the one who made them angry. For this kind your strategy must be to show your good side and not tempt him much unless his inability to do harm is guaranteed. Patiently wait for the third player to tempt him and then join the attack on that player. You will be surprised how easily you won that game. The rational player on the other hand is a lot more tricky. This type of player plays the best move possible in every situation and will not engage in revenge. If you encounter this kind of player you can trust him that he is keeping an eye on the balance. He won’t kill you unless he is sure he will win the game. Try to see the game from his perspective and deduce : “…if he mates me then he won’t be able to go 1vs1 on the third player. Therefore he needs me…” Understandably you don’t want to rely on another player’s stratagem. So the rational player’s enemy is unpredictability. You might want to keep such a player as weak as possible. Hence doing good damage but keeping them in the game is a good plan. Although as I said these games are very tricky and need a lot of analysing, focus and emotional resistance. Also it depends on the game and many other factors. So take the last advice with a grain of salt. Why breaking defence is worth sacrificing material “The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” Sun Tzu Some players are quite passive but it benefits them in some way. They decide to turtle up until the dust is settled and then open up to claim the win. To such players, defence is really important. They try to stay away from every possible threat in order to deflect attacks. Your approach to this kind of play must be aggressive. It might even require you to give up your queen but this is extremely dependent of the context. Let us have a look at a few examples. In this particular game yellow decides to open up blue’s defence. At first it might seem like a free bishop but when you analyse it thoroughly it is a good move in the long term. Blue needs to adjust his position and he is already two essential pawns down. Now the red bishop is looking straight at the b pawn of blue. Look at how later blue needs to find a safe square to preserve his king. It makes blue consider more about defence rather than offense. This is also a good sign to recognize. Strong players often counterattack. Mediocre players always look for a way to defend and hence are sometimes too late to attack. Later on blue finally finds a window to counter and decides it to be a good idea to eliminate the harasser. The rook on i12 is a capture of the yellow knight. And just look at how quickly events escalate into a mate. At this point green notices the weakness around yellow king and sees an opportunity in helping blue to finish the job. You can already guess what comes next. You would be surprised to know how effective the element of opportunity is. Most people are opportunistic and when they see an easy win they go for it. That’s why we sometimes see an unconventional ‘treason’ in high rated games. Another example of how a simple knight sacrifice opens up red’s structure. Blue joins the attack as he sees an opportunity in the potential defeat of red. So now the road to victory is open and red cannot stop both bishops. If he takes the green one it is mate with the help of blue bishop. He can desperately try to prolong the game by sacrificing the knight but the game is practically over for red. A good example of how important it is to break defence. This brutal exhibit shows us how quickly events can turn into your disadvantage if allowed. Red’s plan here is to completely annihilate blue’s defence by exchanging both bishops and leaving blue open to green’s doubled queens. This move is really a crusher for blue. He cannot take the red bishop or he gets mated by green. But he also cannot defend discovered check by red and moving king is not an option either. Totally destroyed by 2 bishops. It costed red 2 bishops but he successfully broke blue’s entire defence. This last example illustrates a queen sacrifice in order to open up blue king. Red could prevent that from happening by moving his queen to the same line as blue king but regardless of what he does green’s plan was to open it up anyway. This leaves blue’s king in the open and buys green time to further develop his pieces while opportunistic red can keep harassing blue. It is truly a subtle move that is rather played on a psychological level. Green knows that people in general are opportunistic so by opening blue he indicates that blue is now vulnerable and must be chased. At the same time he makes himself look smaller. By sacrificing the queen he is not a threat anymore and can be underestimated. Absolutely brilliant! Shortly summarized, leaving a player open to threats and checks is worth sacrificing material in the long term to gain an advantage. It can in some cases even lead to checkmate but must be used carefully. You must not forget that by sacrificing your pieces you also make yourself vulnerable. So unless there is a good compensation you should not consider giving up material. After all you are not only eliminating one player but three. Make sure you have enough material to fight them all in the end. Correlation between King’s safety and victory “The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.” Sun Tzu This statement is not based upon scientific research and is entirely a product of my very own tacit knowledge sourcing from my experiences and observations in my own games. I have no collected data nor conducted any study. (Here I am winking at the statistic experts among us who can make a case of it 😉) With that said, I would like to explain that whenever I see a player whose defence is impenetrable, he tends to be left in peace. According to the law of people being opportunistic, it makes really well sense. I will enlighten this with an example. Look at green’s immense defence in this position. His forces are nearly impenetrable. Both red and blue need to make tremendous sacrifices to open up green’s position and make him vulnerable to checks and threats. This turtle position of green causes the other two players to not even bother attacking him. The defence itself is not as strong as the deflection it creates. Every position can be broken if you wait too long, no matter how perfect your defence is. It is a matter of sheer will and determination, which most people lack. Therefore they don’t even bother to go near green and attack each other. It is convenient for red to attack blue because he is somehow more vulnerable than green. He is within reach and can be damaged. Notice how red is taunted by the easiness of blue’s weakness. He sacrifices the knight to open up the position even more. Furthermore, he does not allow blue to get another queen. Blue triggered red by his last move. He pushes the pawn to get another queen. This alerted red to stop him at all cost out of fear that he might become too strong. Thus he breaks his defence leaving the king in the open and vulnerable for multiple checks and threats. Meanwhile green is still not a target because “he has no queen” and is way too strong protected to even bother. These two elements add up to green’s victory. This is called the normalcy bias. A. He is not dangerous due to lack of queen B. His position is too solid to penetrate in a few moves Realize how all of this happens on a psychological level and is rather a cold war. In the mean time green gets a new queen since no one bothers to even poke him. Red and blue are way too hard engaged in each other and are thus in a state of tunnel vision, in which their focus is only based on one thing. Destroying each other and completely neglecting green’s rise to the throne. At this point blue offers green checkmate on red. Temperament players would be quick to take that mate but if you just take a step back and look at what’s going on you will see that taking that mate leads to defeat. Once green captures that pawn he get +21 points but that is not enough to compete with blue. Also he loses a queen and must now fight against an already existing queen and one that is about to promote. Not a good deal. So instead green goes for blue with a joint attack of red, since red finds it quite easy to attack an already vulnerable player, and blue gives up all hope. Now victory is as good as guaranteed and green needs not fearing red as he is destroyed and in the open as well. Look carefully at green’s structure. Completely impenetrable and structured. The whole game he was not harassed even once. This is mainly because none of the players were tempted to approach green. Deflection successful! It is a long post and if you made it all the way to here, congrats! Hopefully you will have more quality games and will this post serve as a study from which you can learn and perhaps teach 😊 I wish you best of luck in your games and stay safe!

People, friends, chess community and even foes! We should establish this once and for all. Treason in FFA games doesn't exist. People often forget that the game is about winning and if you think that, at one point, turning against your opposite will benefit you then you have to go for it. Of course it is not a pleasant feeling seeing that your queen is being captured by your opposite but grow f*cking up. This is not a game for the weakhearted. Some players start to shout immediately : "Treason, treason!" and start swearing your entire existence. Of course he will attack you if it benefits him. Remember, this is a strategy game. If you don't know what strategy means then search for it but in essence it means playing for the best outcome that benefits YOU. Not your opposite. However, if you want to be second I don't mind at all. I'd love to have you as my opposite but don't cry and expect me to be fully loyal because that's not how it works. Being emotional just shows how weak a man (or woman) is. Hopefully in the next games you guys can set aside your emotions and play with intelligence only. With that said, good luck all in your upcoming games.

[StartFen4 "G-0,0,0,0-0,1,0,0-0,1,0,0-0,0,0,0-2-x,x,x,yR,6,yR,x,x,x/x,x,x,yP,bN,yP,yK,yP,2,yP,x,x,x/x,x,x,bB,2,yP,1,yP,2,x,x,x/bR,bP,7,yP,4/3,bP,8,gP,1/1,bP,9,yN,1,rQ/1,bP,9,gP,1,gN/bK,1,bP,3,rR,3,gQ,2,gK/1,bP,10,gP,gB/1,bP,10,gP,gN/bR,bP,10,gP,gR/x,x,x,4,rP,rN,2,x,x,x/x,x,x,rN,rP,rP,2,rP,rP,rP,x,x,x/x,x,x,2,rK,2,rB,1,rR,x,x,x"][Variant "Teams"][RuleVariants "EnPassant"][CurrentMove "0"][TimeControl "2 | 10"] From game #74108618 For the advanced player; reconstruct the last few moves to get to the game position! To be continued with another puzzle.

Some players clearly lack of fair-play spirit, have no sportmanship. For instance: - betraying the opp in the 1st stage FFA for any reason (finishing then 3rd in most cases, but they don't care), - targeting some particular player, specifically the opp', simply because he is much higher rated, in order to make him finish 4th on purpose and to have the Schadenfreude to see him losing 30, 40 points, - resigning on purpose just before someone eats your Q and gets 9 pts that he deserved, - resigning on purpose just before the certain mate, in order to create thus a zombie king and to prevent the winning player from having 20 points that he deserved and quite often from winning the game he was clearly winning, - eating as much pieces of someone as possible with no strategic advantage (once someone realises he won't win), just in order to make him lose (by revenge), - failing to take an obvious mate in 1, making the opp to lose his Q, on purpose, - throwing on purpose in the 2nd stage FFA to some other player, playing for 2nd and wanting another specific player to be 3rd (kingmaking), - resigning on purpose in order to avoid for the CLEARLY winning player to win, seeing that he needs just 1 or 2 points to win (another case of kingmaking: one makes on purpose some player win rather than some other who clearly deserved the victory taking into account the game and his moves, etc.). I haven't played a lot of games where all the players were above 2500-2600, so cannot say, but in the 2200-2500 area such behaviours are unfortunately common. I think it's very damageable for our nice hobby.

Sometimes, when i play 4pc one of my opponents clock run out but it stays at 0.1 then I lose on time. usually happens because of bad connection

Hey Everyone, Thank you all once again for participating and watching the World 4 Player Chess Championships (W4PCC)! Chess.com will be hosting a Modern 2v2 Teams W4PCC commencing Saturday, October 5, 2024. Schedule of the 2024 Teams W4PCC: October 5 00:00 UTC: 8 Teams will be selected based on objective and/or subjective criteria. Objective (4 teams) - 2/3 * Standard Rapid Teams rating + 1/3 * Standard Blitz Self-Partnering rating, each with a correction factor of (Rating-1500) * (70-RD)/RD - players must be on both leaderboards on October 4, 2024, at 23:59 UTC. Formula: 2/3*[T + (T-1500) * (70-TRD)/TRD] + 1/3 x [S + (S-1500) * (70-SRD)/SRD] where T=4 Player Teams Rapid 2v2 and S=Self-Partnering Blitz Alternates are chosen in order of a) players on both leaderboards b) players on the T leaderboard only c) players on the S leaderboard only d) Subjective Selection Subjective (4 teams) - invitation from the tournament director / referees not based on objective criteria, usually invited for a specific time slot. If deemed appropriate, any or all of the 4 subjective selection slots may instead be based on objective selection. Candidate teams from above selection categories will qualify for Round 1 and will state their preferences from any of the October 19 and 20 time slots (0:00, 12:00, 16:00, or 20:00 UTC). Only the top ranked team from the Objective selection criteria will be guaranteed their first choice. Players on the leaderboard will be chess.com messaged and expected to reply prior to October 12 00:00 UTC with their chosen partner and preferences of times they would like to compete on the weekend of October 19-20, in order. In the event that a player no-shows, withdraws, or is disqualified, a substitute player can participate in that player's place if the other member of the original team and the proposed substitute player are both present and following* the Tournament Director (TD) or referee in charge. A no-show is defined as a player not following* the TD/referee(s) within 15 minutes of the match time. October 12-13 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 8x 1.5-hour 2+10 qualifier Teams partner-only arenas followed by a single game between the top 2 teams. Top 2 teams of each arena challenge each other in a single game and the winner of that game qualifies. Games will be rated. Players that fall below 1600 Teams during the Arena can still complete the arena. Arena scoring will be 2W-1D-0L. Streak bonuses will be removed. Winners of those arenas will play the leaderboard players in Round 1 on the same day of the week and time as the arena which they qualified from (the Saturday October 12 00:00 UTC arena winner plays on Saturday October 19 00:00 UTC and so forth, their arena starting time plus seven (7) days). Winners of those arenas are not to continue playing in further qualifier arenas. Round 1: Round 1 (Bracket of 16) is a Best-of-5 single elimination. Round 1 will be played on October 19 and 20 at 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC depending on the choices of the players selected under Subjective and/or Objective criteria as well as what is lined up with which qualifier arena the player qualified from. Round 1 will be eight matches of one leaderboard player versus one arena winner. Round 2: Winners (8) of Round 1 play Round 2 Best-of-5 on October 26 at their respective time slots** Semi-Finals: Those winners (4) play against each other in Semi-Finals on the weekend of November 2-November 3** in a best-of 7 but can schedule against each other. The matches will be seeded by the following: #1 rating (2/3 higher rated T + 1/3 lower rated T) vs #4 and #2 vs #3 as of October 27, 2024, 0 UTC. Finals: Best-of-12 (Maximum 6 games per day, additional 5-game tiebreak if necessary), November 16 and 17 (and November 23 if necessary) 18:00 UTC**. **upon discussion, players may reschedule if determined that the match is in the best interest of the W4PCC. For all games, pawns promote on the 11th rank to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight, and the en passant mode will be enabled. *"following" is defined as in the same spectator/game chat as the TD/referee on duty at the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. To find the spectator/game chat that the TD (fourplayerchess) or referee is in, please click their profile in the Variants Server and then click "Observing". Note: The TD will be ineligible to compete, but the any staff/admin/referee will be eligible. Additionally, chess.com accounts created on or after October 1, 2024, will be ineligible. "Referee" can include but is not limited to: Variants Administrators, Staff, Assistant TD. Sarvesh SM @Sarvesh_2111 has been named the Assistant TD for the 2024 Teams W4PCC. Prize Money Disclaimer: From a prize fund of $1000 sponsored by chess.com, $300 shall be awarded to each of the 2024 Teams W4PCC champions, and $200 shall be awarded to each of the second-place finishers, but only upon compliance with the Competitive Events Policy https://www.chess.com/legal/events . Please understand this may take days, weeks, or a month or two to process. The tournament director may refer questions regarding prize money to staff/support. The players must agree to use the email directly linked to his/her chess.com account to find the link to the Prize Money when Awarded. Please note that the link may appear in your junk/trash/spam folder, so be sure to check those soon after you win the Championship! Discussion feedback may be taken into consideration but is not guaranteed. Staff and Administrators will be in communication with the TD on any rulings in the current W4PCC and decisions on future W4PCCs. Preliminaries and Finals are projected to be broadcasted on https://www.twitch.tv/fourplayerchess but potentially on https://www.twitch.tv/chess or https://www.twitch.tv/chesscomcommunity or any partnered chess.com streamers and/or 4 Player Chess expert streams. We look forward to seeing you play in the championship! Best of luck to all players trying out! Luke RomankoW4PCC Tournament Director

Hey where are all the diamond wall players gone?