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If I had to explain the most basic strategy for this variant it is funnily enough very similar to what I would say to someone that is learning chess. Make sure your pieces are safe and capture when it is free. Also keep in mind the beginner tips I posted here. It may sound very simple, but if you are rated below 1400, then you really do not need to think too hard on other strategical stuff and focus on board vision and tactics. Besides, if you make an elaborate attack against someone and that player is forced to respond, then that is not necessarily a good thing for you. Other players may take advantage of your attack and gain more points than you do or focus on something else like promoting pawns. The next thing I want to focus on is pawn promotions. If you have played some games you have probably realized that it is relatively easy to promote pawns since the 8th rank is in the centre. Promoted pawns are also only worth 1 point to capture. The first advice I want to give regarding promotions is that if a player is getting close to promote, you should not panic. If you end up sacrificing a bishop for a promoted pawn, then that is not good for you since you only gain 1 point. So if you are in a position with 4 players left you can just let a player have his promoted pawn and it is not such a big deal for you. It takes a lot of moves to promote a pawn, so that player might be a bit behind in development regardless, so even if he has an extra queen that might not be a big threat to you. It is a bigger deal when someone is developed and has 2 pawns about to promote and wants to get 2 queens back to back. While you should not panic when it comes to other players promoting it is still in your interest to stop it if you can do so in a convenient way. The most ideal for you is if someone else deal with it, but that is not always the case. The main way is to prevent it with a pawn or create a threat against the player that is trying to promote to give other players more time to deal with his pawn. One thing NOT to do is create threats against the player that you want to prevent the promotion. Stopping him from stopping a player to promote is among the stupidest things you can do, so if you have no clear benefit like getting free points you really should let him be for at least a few moves. One thing that is sometimes possible with pawns that are close to promote is something I want to call mutual promotion. Normally 2 pawns in the centre with different colours will stop each other. However, sometimes it is possible for a player to advance a pawn and the other player can choose to also advance his pawn instead of capturing. This is the most common to do with the player in front of you with both players moving their pawn in front of their queen. This way both players choose to promote pawns instead of stopping each other. This can be seen as among the best results both players can hope for. Keep in mind though, that especially at lower levels the other player might not understand this strategy, the pawns get traded and the results is bad for both of you, so there is a risk with using this strategy. When it comes to king safety and castling, one interesting advice is to castle to your right regardless if it is kingside or queenside. The idea is that you want to stay as far away from the player to your left as possible (your worst enemy). There is no general rule where your king is safe though. Sometimes castling left is better and sometimes you might want to just walk your king to the side and keep your rook in the corner (especially true if your rook pawn is gone). It can often be a good idea to delay castling since it is a very dynamic decision where your king is safe, but of course it is better to castle too soon rather than too late.

Very frustrating when a player makes a non sensical swap with your pieces when it clearly messes us both up. Being on the receiving end of some randoms poor play is annoying.

Currently, when opening the leaderboard in chrome the leaderboard is positioned so that the button to close it is off-screen. The only fixes for this I have found are entering fullscreen or refreshing. Could this be fixed so that you are able to close the leaderboard after opening it without needing to fullscreen/refresh?

i know where did i figure out about these i dont know but this is the last one i request three player chess!!!

It has been proposed that we switch to a 2|20 delay time control. Please let us know whether the you think the current time control of 1|15 delay is too fast for teams, or just right. We do not yet have enough users to add an additional time control, so we would need to switch completely over to this new time control. 

I suggest the 4 player chess leaderboard be REMOVED. It has driven people crazy. People want to be in the leaderboard which is the only reason why people are CHEATING. If it is removed, it can solve many problems.

Today in the chat @Ne2willdo said that one of the top players is cheating. I asked how exactly. @Ne2willdo did not answer yet, but Martin0 said: "Currently rating in teams is calculated based on average rating, so one easy way to cheat in teams is to have a partner that has sandbagged his rating." I did not know about this cheating way before. I was sure that Teams Mode is protected from cheating. Now I am not sure. So, if one player has a rating of, let's say, 1700 and his/her teammate is 900, their average rating is 1300. So, if they play vs 2 x 1200-1300 guys they will earn noticeable amount of points. If that "900" account is a second account of the same player or his/her friend (who is actually 1700 too) then it is definitely cheating. If both teammates have 1700 and play with their real (not secondary, "zombie") accounts then in a game vs. 2 x 1200-1300 guys they get only +2 or +3 points for a win. This way they need to win 40 or 50 games to become 1800. Any ideas how can it be fixed? Maybe something like "You can invite a player to a rated game if the rating difference is less than 300?" But this does not fix the case with random teammates. Set an auto-range +-300 in matchmaking for random teammates?

it s hard to find good opponennt , and when i already find them I cant play another game with the same opps

At least give us a choice between a very fast and slower option. It a tricky game and a little more thinking time would be good

I'm going to expand further on my two main threads https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/partnering-fml https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/venting-1 I just got off a game where I lost (more points -again I'm the same individual who had lost 250+ rating points due to idiotic partners.) My so called partner @Suryansh386 posts up "L 5" Now common sense would tell you watch or move to L5 but no he doesn't want me to push the pawn, he wants to be a-hole because he has blue hasn't even moved to ask that I push the pawn for some tactic. He's on his turn and let's the clock run down and with less than 20 seconds left he disconnects, the clock runs down, with the result being he and I losing. Why and I beat my head into a wall ask continuously here, why must I and other such members suffer constantly at the hands of such jerks?! Ban their membership and ban their IP Address! I'm one of the early members of this website and have seen it grown in every direction but as far back as V1 the offbeat slogan was a place to have fun with a transcontinental game we've all enjoyed. There is nothing to be enjoyed if I keep messaging, writing, posting and enduring the same crap. Then heaven forbid you try to post some pissed off message on that member's profile: you get flagged -this despite the fact that at the game or in the conclusion that teammate curses you off. It's ironic that one's account can be terminated for commenting but members who are being jerks don't get the boot. Earlier on a different game, I had some teammate who wanted to draw stars, lines and all sorts of nonsense. Asking him (@GMBuu) politely to stop proved futile, this is not the first time I written of such jerks. I have the utmost respect for @erik and all he's done here but I do believe staff has dropped the ball in listening to suggestions and in weeding away those who hurt the site itself. It's members like the ones I previously mentioned who are acting like a cancer and ruining it for the masses. 10 Years back it was fun, I'm done.

What do you think about this?

Do you think that casual games should be implemented if the rating difference between the highest and lowest rated player exceeds 200 ELO?

I block a member after they bolted on me after 2 moves on the subsequent [new] game I get paired with them again. By rule of thumb: if you have a member blocked on your blocked list they shouldn't be allowed to be paired with you so as to communicate and/or bother you again!

This is my hierarchy at the moment: 1200 - 1400 = Beginner 1401 - 1599 = Intermediate 1600 - 1700 = Advanced 1701 - 1900 = Pro 1901 - 2000 = Elite 2001 - 2200 = Master ??? = Grand Master Agree or Disagree? I'm a 1564 ATM, so I'd categorize myself as Intermediate.

First yellow mated blue, then Green just played Qxg2 and it's mate, since I had no valid moves. However, there is a bad logic to this. Yellow had previously landed mate against blue, and actually made an unavoidable checkmate first, and would also execute a capture of the king first. I know it's supposed to be possible for the team to help out, but here it seems we mated first, but since I was in turn first, we lost, because the "empty moves" had to be played out. I would rather see a king capture to finish the game, then the first to mate actually wins....

My last 3 team games have seen me paired with complete bonafide a-holes! They wouldn't communicate, help out or wrote in some tribal language I couldn't make out without Wonder Woman's help. What part of teammate don't they understand?! I'm tethering on suggesting a sub-selection for one to pick English or International, where English would be (USA, AUS, CAN, UK and NZ) and the rest of the country be listed as International. At least there one can communicate equally, yell at their quiet teammate to play, wake up, etc or at least know that they understand you! Am I pissed?, oh I'm livid!

With 2 moves into the game completed, my so-called "partner" decides to let the clock run-down and lose the game because he wants to disconnect, costing me 15 rating points. This is an issue that has to be dealt with, this fool claimed he want FFA, regardless of an excuse, such members should have disconnects tracked and at minimum barred from 4PC or similar variations and parts (Live, Daily, etc) throughout chess.com. At worse they should be banned if they chronically abandon games as MANY have on Live Chess! Why should one take a hit because of an individual?! -Absurd!!

Given that most people seem to be using the rating range selector now, it seems to take 15+ minutes to get matched. In that time everyone goes off and does other things on the net. Given things have changed, the sequence to start a game should match this. Perhaps a 30 second delay for red to start and a countdown with a range of loudness options every 10 seconds as a warning the game will soon start

There is a special sound (like maracas shaking) if a player is going to time out. I noticed several times that this sound sometimes does not work. I can not find any pattern yet. But it seems that when your time is going down to 9 seconds the sound works. But later if it goes from 9 to 7 (or less) it does not work, or works sometimes. Did you notice the same? P.S. Browser: Chrome. P.P.S. I'd prefer more noticeable (alarming) sound instead of that shaking.

I feel private (intra-team) chatting will be the death-knell of team play. 1) A single player controlling both sides has an innate advantage over two opponents controlling their own respective sides (the single player has perfect/instantaneous/effortless communication with "partner"). 2) Eventually (if it hasn't already happened), an already-strong 4-PC player is going to find a willing "puppet" partner. 3) The team will be controlled completely by the puppet-master, who will call out moves to the puppet in private chat. 4) Both puppet master and puppet benefit: the "team" will be virtually unbeatable (with the exception of other "puppet" teams who might have a better puppet master); both will quickly rise to the top of the leader board. I should note - this scenario is the "end-game", where I think things will wind up. However, symptoms of it already run rampant. My last 4PC team game, I was a 1200-rated player matched with 1450-rated player. This partner called out every move from move 1. Each move made good sense, and partner *was* high-rated, so I followed his suggestions. We checkmated in < 10 moves. This was the least-fun and most demoralizing win I've ever had in chess... in fact, so bad a taste did it leave that I haven't played a game since. "Just ignore the suggestions", you might say. That's like working on a Sudoku puzzle while a Sudoku expert is helpfully telling you what values go in each box. I think team-4PC should be more like the card-game "bridge", wherein ANY game-related/strategic communication between teammates is considered cheating. The only communication in bridge is communication via how one plays. Far from detracting from play, this forced-radio-silence is actually one of the best and most appealing features of bridge; great teams are those who are able to infer what their partner is up to and act in a synergistic fashion. I should note, even disabling "private chat" mode doesn't totally solve this problem. The puppeteering team still has the exact same advantage if puppet-master communicates puppet's moves on "/all" chat (that is, the puppet master can still call out moves... yes, everyone will see that, but if there aren't rules against it, what difference does it make?). To that end, any communication which in any way hints at what a teammate should do should be considered cheating (and should be flag-able by opponents such that routine cheaters can be penalized/weeded out). Yes, processing "cheat accusations" adds a layer of complexity to game-design; but there is precedence for this. Online bridge exists; I'd recommend studying and emulating the controls used to discourage casual cheating in that realm.