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im a little late for this but just asking

I think this game highlights how ffa games aren't always what they seem. Just because you see a queen doesn't mean you should take it. It also shows how a "losing position" can very easily win with the right friction between the other players. https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/52429218

Here are couple of openings for Free-For-All 4-Player-Chess, because I haven't found much in pinned guides and topics. First 4 or 5 moves are the most important. 1. Queen Rush Queen in 5 moves, very strong and popular opening. 2. Fast Castle Popular defensive opening 3. Mating Queen Push Slightly delayed Queen Rush with possibility of mating unaware opponent 4. Infiltration Trade knight for enemy Bishop and his diagonal 5. Roaming Queen Start roaming the board with queen as soon as possible 6. Aggressive Knights High Risk High reward blunder opening. Turn your sides against each other. Do you know some other openings for free-for-all 4-player-chess? First four or five moves.Do you have your own or favorite ones? And pictures?

Problem #1: Not enough players to start 2800+ Hyperbullet 2 Players live in USA, 1 lives in an unknown country, and 1 in India. Also, only 3 play standard. As far as I know, Ultimate Ultrabullet has only filled up ONCE, and that was when there were 6 or more 2800+ players, one of which was @MegaChief. My Proposal: Since there is already Ultrabullet Elite (2300+), make this 2500+ at the very least. Problem #2: Be careful about what you call a Master instead? That person who just betrayed their opposite for a pawn? The group of 1|2 players? My Proposal: Change to somewhere between 2000+ and 2200+ Problem #3: 1600+ is heavily preferred over 2000+, for some odd reason I have also never seen this fill up... My Proposal: Remove the arena altogether?

Hello everyone! The following is the knowledge that I have gathered from studying this game for a (not) very long time, to give you an insight of the game principles as well as how to play the opening correctly with red, blue, yellow, and green piece respectively. Without further ado, let dive straight into it. And by the way, my mother tongue is not English but I will try my best I. The principles Like in regular chess, to be good at the games first you have to study the endgame, then be good at tactics, then you can study the opening. Why? Because to get the final victory, entering the '2 players' stage is inevitable. So make sure you are done with the endgame before reading all of this (seriously). - Talking about the endgame, here in 4 ways chess it doesn't have too much difference. Like for example in the Rook endgame you (still) want to cut off the opponent' king with your rook instead of giving meaningless checks and improving their king' position (Yeah I saw that a lot), how to use 1 Queen to outmaneuver 1 King and 2 Pawns (not rare), and especially the King and Pawn endgame (block first then push not vice versa). For short, STUDY THE ENDGAME!!!. Now the principles: If you are up materials in the '2 players' stage, trade down whenever possible. How to castle properly: on the safer flank of course. It doesn't matter which side, just lock down one side and castle on that one, if you don't know how to do it then just try to put all your pieces as near at your king as possible. Don't trade rook for bishop. People keep misunderstanding this. Although they give the same point, but don't have the same value. A rook can support pushing pawn later in the game without having to move back and forth like bishop. I once suggested that rook should be 5 point and bishop 4, but someone (frankly attending the final but shan't not be named) replied: 'Doesn't matter, the earth will still spin' something like that. Anyways, the rook is better than the bishop in regular chess for a reason, and so is it here. Don't avoid trading when it is better to do so. Sure avoid trading early in the game is good and you should do that (until the '3 players' stage). But under some circumstances by doing that you are also unnecessarily weakening your position (for example pushing a pawn to block a diagonal) meanwhile your pieces are being cramped up due to not having enough space in your camp. You may not realize, but trading also means removing threat. So don't afraid of trading bishop, bishop for knight, and of course, bishop for rook. And I'm telling you, there is a secret of how to trade pieces properly among top players, which is: Only trade with one flank. By that, you can trade without breaking the balance, whereby increasing the chance of surviving as well as giving air for your opposite to deal with your other flank. Sometimes this lead to a situation like: Red vs Green & Yellow vs Blue happening simultaneously, but that is fine. When you don't need to keep a rook in the corner near your king: When the flank is fully locked, like this: Like in this situation, you should castle instead of moving the king to the right (which didn't happen in the game ). Sure, wasting a few moves to get your king to d13 and get the rook out doesn't do much harm, right? There are still many more complicated principles to be discussed, like for example Which one to chose: Point advantage or Material advantage, but I'd stop here for now and keep that for later. II. The openings The purpose of opening theory (like in every other games) is to achieve an optimal starting setup (for both attacking and defending) without spending much time thinking of the moves. With that, I reject the assertion 'This game has no opening theory because either you win or not is a matter of luck'. In fact, this might be true (for low-rated lever of play only, duh) . In most case, luck and chances only turn up in the middle of the game, which is why you have to defend properly in the opening in order to get those chances when they come. Before starting to go into specific openings, I'd say the addition of 'en passant' due to the update doesn't really have any significant impact on these theories, because they are highly emphatic on tempo (you will see what I mean). Maybe it will inspire a new opening (perhaps starting by pushing the rook pawn all the way to queen), but that is another story. 1. The Clemenz Opening Characteristic: An aggressive opening which focuses on minimizing defense and controlling as much space as possible, seen playing the most and works best (up until now) with Red piece (also Yellow) Featured player: MegaLizardon-X Setup: Castle right side, king in the corner, knights near center, pawns pushed as far as possible, rooks and queen on 3rd rank (to protect the d12/k3 pawn since it's very weak). Countermeasure: A eyeing at k3/d12 Example games with: - Red piece; Yellow piece (click to follow the link) Comment: Don't play this if you are a defensive (or neutral) player, because it doesn't work like that. This opening is suitable for early queening - late castling - style, because it can only be played after k4/d11 has been pushed, remember that, or you will have to suffer. 2. The Cold System Characteristic: A defensive opening which focuses on locking (or keeping the tension with) the left side and slow play on the right side, seen playing the most and works best (up until now) with Blue piece and Green piece (usually with more defensive lines) Featured player: Setup: Castle right side, put left-side pawns on light squares, using dark bishop to control spaces in right flank' camp (at c9 c11 b8 with blue) or trade down with right flank, defensive queen. Countermeasure: A light square eyeing at h13/g2 diagonal Example games with: - Blue piece; Green piece (click to follow the link) Comment: Every pawn moves in this opening is crucial because you will easily be in a lot of trouble if some of them get pinned (that's why I called it system. a pawn move at not the right moment can break down the whole thing), so be careful. A good 'cold system' player should know when to push his 7-pawn to queen as smoothly as possible. 3. The Dragon Opening Characteristic: A very defensive opening, can be played by all 4 piece (Easier to set up for Red and Yellow). By 'very defensive' I mean very solid, impenetrable, can not be broken through without at least 2 other players joining the attack. Strong, simple and flexible. The best opening ever existed up until this point. Featured player: hest1805 (I'd say his dragon is invincible) Setup: Starting with pushing the right rook-pawn, then slowly put every pieces on the right flank. Both knights are on the right side, the center pawns can be pushed and white bishop are free to roam. Countermeasure: No countermeasure (from one flank) Example games with: - Red piece; Yellow piece (click to follow the link) Comment: This is one of the most common opening of this game, and perhaps the easiest to play, but to play it to its full potential you'd need a lot of practice. 4. The Hippo Opening Characteristic: Somewhat the same as The Dragon, but much slower. It can also be played by all 4 piece (Easier to set up for Blue and Green) You play about ten moves before deciding which flank to castle, sometimes even free the option of both side castling before deciding what to do. Featured player: Fifth_something Setup: Like I said, pretty much everything you do that free both-side castling gets the job done. Some of this opening features is: no pawn/piece exceeds the 3rd rank, queen behind bishops, the king walk,... Countermeasure: Fast play (early queen for example) Example games with: - Blue piece; Green piece (click to follow the link) Comment: This is the slowest opening. A very slow, defensive and lazy opening (hence the name) to play. Even there are some people being unbelievably lazy that after freeing both-side castling, they start... walking to one of the flanks, which completes the lazy masterpiece of a 20-moves opening. I truly do not recommend that. (To be continued) For those of you who may not know me, I am skak4 (also known as loveling129) - a player who once managed to get both accounts into top 20. But since my vice one has been banned (which is reasonable), I am just skak4 now. If you like my work feel free to show it, that would motivate me a lot. Thank you!

Title.

Hey Everyone, Thank you all once again for participating and watching the World 4 Player Chess Championships (W4PCC)!Chess.com will be hosting the first New Standard Solo/FFA W4PCC commencing Thursday, June 15, 2023.Schedule of the 2023 Standard FFA W4PCC:June 15 00:00 UTC: The top 12 from FFA rapid leaderboard are selected as the first 12 candidates. Those candidates will qualify for Round 2 and play in any of the June 25 time slots (0:00, 12:00, 16:00, or 20:00 UTC) on a first come first serve basis. Only the top 3 will be guaranteed their first choice. Players on the leaderboard will be messaged and expected to reply prior to June 16 00:00 UTC with their preferences of times they would like to compete on June 24, in order. Replacements will be #13-20 in order from that leaderboard, and then the highest rated player following* the Tournament Director (TD) or referee in charge.June 17-18 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 8x 3-hour 1+5 Rapid 2400+ qualifier arenas, top 2 each arena qualify. Games will be rated and anonymous. Players that fall below 2400 Rapid during the Arena can still complete the arena. While the arenas are 1+5 (normally a blitz time control), they are treated as Rapid Ratings for these arenas. Arena scoring will be 3-1-1-0. Streak bonuses will be removed.June 24 (Round 1) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 16 players that qualified from the arenas (or substitutes thereof) will battle to 4 in first-to-1.25. 4 on June 24 00:00 UTC, 4 on June 24 12:00 UTC, 4 on June 24 16:00 UTC, and 4 on June 24, 20:00 UTC. Replacements will be #3 through last place from the arena the no-show player qualified from, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, semi-anonymous, and 1+7.June 25 (Round 2) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: The 4 that advance (1 per time slot) will join the 12 leaderboard candidates (3 each time slot) in a first-to-1.25. Replacements from the leaderboard were discussed above, but replacements from June 24 will be in order from #2-4 from that time slot, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, semi-anonymous, and 1+7.July 1-2 (Finals) 18:00 UTC: The final four will play for the Championship in a best-of-9 (first-to-2.25) with a maximum of 5 games per day. Games will be rated, semi-anonymous, and 1+7.See the following diagrams to hopefully clear up confusion:For all games, pawns promote on the 8th to a 1-point queen, and the en passant and dead king walk modes 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".Prize Money Disclaimer: It's a pleasure to announce our first New Standard championship was already approved for funding with $1000 from chess.com for the 2023 Standard FFA World Champion. 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. Only one player will be awarded prize money, and that player 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!A detailed handbook will be organized and updated for this championship soon. This was worked out after discussion with other administrators and details may be edited in the next few days after further discussion with the community. @spacebar will be the Assistant Tournament Director for this championship! Other Admins and Staff may be referees. Discussion feedback may be taken into consideration but is not guaranteed. This Championship is not to be confused with the 2023 Original FFA W4PCC, which takes place May 20-June 11.Preliminaries and Finals will be broadcasted on https://www.twitch.tv/fourplayerchess . We look forward to seeing you play in the championship! Best of luck to all players trying out!Luke RomankoW4PCC Tournament Director

Usually brilliant moves involve sacrificing a piece(or pieces), usually important pieces to either win material, checkmating the king or to gain stalemate.

Blundered the game #52416223 completely Then suddenly a glimpse of An opportunity Snuck In Nd the victory was Mine Position Is interesting , so thought to give You all a Quiz to find the Win for White WHitE TO Succeed

Do Red+Yellow have noticeable advantage in 4PC Teams? I queried 38699 Teams games (with 9 plies or more). 19600 1-0 (Red + Yellow won)19058 0-1 (Blue + Green won)41 Draw 50.647% / 49.247% / 0.106% What are the longest games in 4PC so far? FFA: Time: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=21642 64' 464 plies Plies: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=24499 58' 546 plies Teams: Time: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=71449 60' 414 plies Plies: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=75693 44' 456 plies

South America? Anyone!!! Is the time between 20:00 - 01:00 UTC so abnormal?!? I can't start any game with even 2450+ ! I can only dream about some high game! I've been waiting over an hour and a half for the game and nothing! 2450+ ! HEY!!! And when I finally run into a game, there are big minds of 2400, 2500 ( not all, of course...some 2500 now how to play but most don't unfortunately )! Great! So relaxing, isn't it?

Chicken

4 Player Chess has moved to chess.com/variants, which is in fact nothing other than "4PC 2.0", eg a big update to 4 player chess.We have made some major changes to 4 player chess:1. The starting position has changed to the so called "Omatamix setup": The reason for this change is that the "oma" setup is much more balanced. According to the strongest 4PC engine, oma is around +1 for Red&Yellow, compared to +4 for the current setup. (https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/balance-3?page=2#comment-60024648)This change is for both Teams and FFA. This change was discussed here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/balance-32. High level FFA is Solo. There is no longer a separate mode or rating for Solo. The new system "morphs" from the old FFA system to the Solo system, as the average rating increases. This means that when the average rating is closer to 1500, players finishing in 2nd place will typically gain rating, and in higher-rated games, the distinction between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th will be less consequential. The graph below shows how this will look: see also https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/ffa-solo-simplify-the-game This change can be discussed here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/sfa-solo-for-all   3. The default time control is 1|7 (1 minute with 7 seconds increment) for FFA and 2|10 for Teams.We believe delay is not a suitable time control, especially for high level FFA (Solo) which involves a lot of shuffling late in the game, until some highly critical moment when much time to think is appropriate. The classic example being Solo championships where top players shuffled forever only to blunder in the critical moment when 15 seconds were not enough. It's also not fun to watch players wait 15 seconds only to play a "nothing move" (shuffling). Increment rewards fast play, allows saving up time for critical moments. Further, overall games are too slow for most, many players avoid FFA because games just take too long. We think 1|7 will up the pace a little bit, while still leaving plenty of time to think. And also make games more fun to watch.1|7 is the new default setting, but of course you can still choose any time control, including the good old 1|15Delay.

Ideally, chess.com two player ratings, FFA, and Teams ratings should be similar, where a 2000 blitz player, I would say, has gained the same amount of skill as a 2000 FFA player or a 2000 Teams player. Functionally, this is impossible to line up completely, but we can still try to move ffa ratings to a point where FFA ratings seem to at least vaguely parallel two player ratings. Right now, FFA ratings start at 1500, while normal ratings (typically) start at 800 or 600 or something like that. From a logical perspective, I don't think this discrepancy is needed, as it inflates all ffa ratings far above where they should be. I propose reducing all ratings by 700 points and starting at 800, which I think is much closer to similar skill in normal chess. For example, a 1500 would be an 800, 2000 a 1300, 2400, a 1700, and a 3000 a 2300. While not perfect, I think this makes a lot more sense. Similarly, I believe FFA ratings are above Teams ratings by about 500 points, give or take. I think it should be considered to make their ratings line up more as well. The argument against this is that the current rating system looks better. It is cooler to be a 2000 than a 1300, yes. But I think under the current rating system, players either ignore the current rating tiers versus 2 player chess, understanding they are completely incomparable, or are misled by their rating, neither of which are desirable. While reducing ratings by 700 may make ratings less attractive, I think having a rating system that reflects something that is actually somewhat comparable with regular chess ratings is more desirable in the long run. Thanks for considering, Caleb

Lately, I've noticed an influx in smurfing and alt accounts. Unless I am missing something, I thought alt accounts had to go through an approval process. Did chess.com variants stop monitoring alt accounts? If so, that's fine, but please enlighten me. Seems to border unfair game play and it's getting old. Many friends have mentioned the same thing, so I know it's not just me. Thank you

Here is a list of known bugs. Feel free to report any bug that is missing here or in a new topic. Posting bugs in the group notes are generally a bad idea since they are easily missed and forgotten. General: Flashing screen. It Switches between showing board and black screen (related topics: 1) Occasionally unable to rewind to start of game (related topics: 1, 2) Castling after captured rook (related topics: 1) Unable to castle when rook moves over checked square (related topics: 1) Some "bugged" games does not disappear from game list (see post#8, related topics: 1) Top games list not sorted by rating correctly (see post#9) Game does not start for some players? (related topics: 1) You should not be able to get paired up with a blocked opponent (related topics: 1, 2) Pieces can 'disappear'. You can't see them, but still move them (see post #27 and #29) UI glitches: Arrows after game still there (related topics: 1) Copy names (related topics: 1) Clock shows 0:59 instead of 1:00 for the player who has the move (related topics: 1) Truncated usernames not fully shown when hovering the mouse as tooltips (related topics: 1) Board size behaves wrong for some browsers (see post#5) Arrows do not resize when resizing browser window and end up on wrong squares (see post#6) Free For All: No rating changes when the top score is equal (related topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) Drawn games does not end (related topics: 1, 2(post #5), 3 ) Unable to move king next to a dead (resigned) king (related topics: 1) Draws should be 10 points for all remaining players (related topics: 1, 2) Dead kings should not be part of double checks (related topics: 1) Teams: A player can be put into 2 teams (related topics: 1, 2) Can't castle while in "check" from partner, or the king's path/destination is threatened by a partner's piece. Stalemate should be a draw, not a loss (related topics: 1) New game board not showing when your spectating a game and a partner accepts your invite (related topics: 1) username in invited player box stays the same and impossible to edit when using a different account on the same computer (related topics: 1) Recent fixes: The bugs mentioned below should hopefully be fixed and no longer be bugs, please report if there are still issues. For all recent changes, see the changelog. Rating ranges now works correctly and is followed 100% (related topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) The FFA/team mode option remember the last selection (related topics: 1) The invite member field remember when made blank (related topics: 1) Removed rounding error bug from FFA ratings

https://www.chess.com/club/mrbeast-fan-club-3/join

I make sure this club has nice people. There are tournaments. This club should be fun. There are also puzzles. There are also vote chess.