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ue to the changed board size, some pieces have increased in value, while others have dipped in value. The pawn has gained increased power due to being able to promote in the middle of the board, in stead of the typically well defended back row. The pawn and the promoted queen should still be valued at one point, the other pieces should adjust to allow that. The knight, in contrast, has dipped in strength. It retains it's defensive capabilities, but pales in comparison to the bishop. I believe it should be considered to be worth two points. The bishop has an increase in strength. It - unlike the rook- can easily target two opponents at once. It's greater maneuverability should increase it's value to four points, it's only weakness being it's access to only half the squares on the board. The rook has not increased it's value, as it's lack of maneuverability negates it's increased range. It should also be valued at four points, adjusting from the usual five points due to the increased power of the pawn. The queen has almost doubled in strength. It has the abilities of the bishop and room but with none of the weaknesses. I believe it should be valued anywhere between ten and twelve points.

I am not sure if this has been posted before, but I noticed that in my opinion too many players abort their games. for 2 reasons. 1) They dont like their color (if they start as 4th color for example) or2) if they dont like the ratings of other players I think that people should be punished with some little amount of rating points, so that this problem stops. As it takes some time to create pairings, it can take sometimes take minutes for creation of pairings, which is quite a lot of time online ;-) Any other opinions on this?

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Listen, I know many here play bullet, love fast pace games, but... this is very very new and, don’t you think to be more inviting to newbies that find out about this Fantastic New Addition to Chess.com there should at least be another added minute? I know a lot here wish to rush their game, but I am rather upset that I had to with my past device I used to have and was conditioned to have to quickly move or it would lock my screen, therefore forced to blitz 5 minute ones if not an insane 1 minute’r and it forced me to move quick, though I so rather E N J O Y a ‘game’ and not some rush to see who can do the most damage with the little silly time given! It seems quite FAIR to have AT LEAST 2 small minutes.. Yes, there’s a slight lapse before each move that does help, but IT MOST CERTAINLY WOULD were we given the totally sensible extra SMALL minute.. Please forgive me if I’m sounding too much of griping, you guys have made an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME ADDITION TO THIS SITE but I do fEEl it can be SO MUCH MORE (lol AWESOME’R) were we to have the very least one more minute, P L E A S E.. This game SHOULD not be so rushed. For crying out loud there’s lol like a total of 3 boards instead of just one.. c’mon ”,

I wish to happen involves the ability to, because we have records of each game, to contact the opponent you were dualing it out with and express a gg or even request friends to ‘Live it’, as well stay in contact with instead of having to click on their avatar while you have very little time to focus ALL THATS SPREAD ALL OVER THE BOARD chewing more your time just to make sure you’re able to contact after it’s a finished game. If we had records each game (that would be WAY COOL and should be very easy to accommodate) we could simply be able to do such things.

I would like to see a change that when a player is mated (particularly the first player), that the person who finalized the mate takes over those pieces that are left on the board.

I've just started at four player chess, but having watched a few grand masters flounder around and say 'I don't know what I'm doing', I figured that the field was pretty open. I've written up a few four player strategies, and would love to get feedback: Four player chess Strategic Elements -Don't trade Trading weakens you and the opponent you just took, leaving the other two players stronger. Even 'trading up' will weaken you. Example: You take a bishop for a knight. Great trade, right?? Let's do the math: Before your trade: (You) Red: 30 points in piecesBlue: 30 points in piecesGreen: 30 points in piecesYellow: 30 points in pieces After the trade: (You) Red: 27 points in piecesBlue: 25 points in piecesGreen: 30 points in piecesYellow: 30 points in pieces You see? While you gained two points *against Blue*, you lost three points against Green AND Yellow!! You also gained five points toward your final score, but few games are decided by so small a margin. -Don't leave your pieces en prise In ordinary chess you can say, "Hey, if he takes me here I can just take him back." Two problems with that in four player chess:1) It is a trade, thus bad for you and2) In the meantime, after he 'takes me here', someone else might do something I need to respond to! So I might not be able to, or willing to, 'just take him back'. - Don't focus on one player You have this great attack going against red. Two moves from now, he is toast, checkmate... Except while you were looking that way, Blue snuck in and started attacking you!! - Gang up When you see a player being attacked, check to see if you can use the tempo he needs to defend himself in order for you to take a piece. This is particularly true when he is checked, and when you move before him. You might just be able to gobble a piece for free.It is less dramatic but also true that when a player is busy fighting off an attack by one player they are simply more vulnerable to attacks elsewhere. -Balance the powerThe opposite of 'ganging up': when a player is attacking another player the attacking player might be 'vulnerable' to your attack... he might be willing to sacrifice the bishop you are attacking in order to gain a checkmate, for example.And, hopefully obviously, you don't want that other player to do well -Don't forget turn order, the player that moves right after you is much 'stronger' than the player that plays three later The player that moves right after you can respond right away to your attacks. The player that moves three after you has two other opponents who might do things that they have to respond to.-Defense, defense, defenseAn attack is an attack against one, a good defense protects against all.-Diagonals are fantastically important Bishops are arguably more important than rooks, as a well placed bishop attacks two opponents at once, from the safety of the home squares, whereas your rooks have to move out into the board to do the same thing. -Get in on the mate! When you see one player start to line another player up for a mate, get your pieces lined up to cover the area where the mate will be takign place. It might very well happen that what is one move away from mate for Red, might be a mate you can do *right now*! One really important strategy is to cover the 'mating square'. Often an opponent will chose to move there, and get the mate, even with a queen, even if it means giving the queent to you! They get twenty points, after all! So why not you get nine at the same time! -Don't let others in on your mate! Don't set up a mating situation that someone else can take advantage of! You get Red's king backed up to one file... and yellow swoops in with his castle and gets the mate! You might even need to back off to prevent a different opponent from mating. -Knights are best at home. Knights move really slowly compared to bishops, queens, and rooks. So use them mostly for home defense duties, or to wrap around the corner and go after a castled king.

Here is a suggestion for making the game more fun and less predictable. Instead of having each piece worth a standard number of points, a random value will be assigned to each piece at the start of the game, a number between 1 and 8, and this number will be shown inside the piece (like currently the number 1 is shown inside promoted queens). By "piece" I mean all pieces and pawns, including the king. Each army will have 2 pieces valued 1 point, 2 valued 2 points, 2 valued 3 points, ..., 2 valued 8 points. The total value of all pieces of an army will be 72. The total value of the pawns alone will be 36 (half the value of the army). So your leftmost pawn may have a value of 8 points, your left rook 4 points, your right rook 1 point etc. Each game will be different, value-wise.The pawns will get a different value after promotion. The formula will be 9 - [value before promotion]. So a pawn(1) will promote to a queen(8), a pawn(2) will promote to a queen(7), a pawn(3) will promote to a queen(6), ..., a pawn(8) will promote to a queen(1).Checkmating a king will have the effect of kicking the owner of the king out of the game. All his pieces will become gray, and their value will be halved (rounding up). The player who delivered the first check will get the kings's points (a random value between 1 and 8 as described earlier). Players resigning or losing on time will have their pieces grayed and value-halved instantly.The objective of the suggestion is to force players to make tough decisions about what is more important, points or mobility. Would you sacrifice a rook(1) for a pawn(8)? Is a pawn(1) worth pushing to be promoted to a queen(8)? Is it better to kill an opponent and then grab his pieces for half of their value, or to let him stay alive and get the full value of his army?Opinions are welcome!

For some reason, I realized that except in games, there were no other possible way of knowing our 4-player rating. Opponents, I can only view them if I were playing them. Is viewing ratings of 4-player possible in the near future? If there already is another way, can someone let me know? Thx Richard

Here is a rule change that I think would solve some of the issues that have come up:Treat the pieces of a resigned/time loss/checkmated player *as if they could still move* for the purposes of check. Example: Gold's king cannot move to square B2 because Red's queen faces down on that square. Red is then checkmated/resigns/runs out of time.Current Rules: Gold's king can now move to square B2.Proposed Rule: Gold's king cannot move to B2 until the queen is blocked or taken.Some of the issues this might address: Several times the idea of having to only 'checkmate' a resigned king has been proposed and even implemented, no? However given their resigned state, bizarre conditions can result. If the pieces were still considered movable (even tho they wouldn't actually move) any checkmate would have to be 'real'... ie really deal with the pieces around, and the king.Standard chess parallel: There is a parallel for this in standard chess. A bishop, say, which is 'pinned' in front of its own king, and thus cannot legally move, can nonetheless participate in a discovered check, or even be part of the block for a checkmate... *as if it could move*.

Since checkmate or the last man standing isn't the way to win, resignation doesn't necessarily lose. Some players use this as a trick to win (when there are only 2 players left) when he/she has more points and can afford to give 15 points to the opponent by resigning, and still winning by points. Wouldn't this be a little annoying?

Basically in the last game I just played, I was en route to winning the game, when a player resigned JUST to prevent me from picking up a dead king, hereby denying me the first place, such player is scum, and there should be a rule that awards 40 points instead of 20 points if they resign with a dead king still out in play

On the other 4 player group’s Notes this recently (okay, lol not recently) was posted; lazarus_low 28 days agoI suggest that all players be anonymous during the game. That way collusion is impossible ChessCitizen 28 days ago@lazarus_low thats a very good point actually, there seems to quick be situations of ganging up on someone. Especially with checks I do think this is a very good idea and would eliminate much unfortunates presently going on, and then after the totals appear from the finished outcome then we see who played, won, etc.

Recently this rule was implemented: Non-grey dead kings CAN be checkmated to attain +20 points. I would like to hear some motivation of this rule since I have not heard anything of it. It has several implications and to be honest I am missing the benefits. Below is a strange example: In this position, red is in check, but not checkmated since he can block with his rook. Red resigned. Next, blue played a random move (Rxi7) and then the game saw that the red king was checkmated since the gray rook could no longer block the check. Blue was awarded 20 points for the checkmate. Also a bit interesting that the d2 square which is a gray piece was not seen as a possible square to not be a checkmate.

1. 4 Player Chess currently is prone to mouse slips, at least for me and some other players (who answered me in chat). That is why I currently use "click and click" way to move pieces to long distances instead of "drag and drop". This should be fixed. Also when you just click a piece it shifts slightly and then returns back to its place. It should not work this way. Maybe the program expect us to click exactly in the center of the square, who knows. If I click a piece and do not drag it the piece should stay in place without shifting.2. In most cases there are highlighted squares showing the last moves of the players. But sometimes they disappear. In some cases when I click a piece and drag it to a new square I notice that the initial square is not highlighted. So, if I change my mind during making a move and want to return this piece back to move another piece I must recall where was that piece before. 3. In spectator mode there is no indication of the last moves. 4. Players should see if there are some spectators watching the game.5. Would be good to have an option "highlight legal moves".6. There should be an obvious way to distinguish a king of a resigned player. For example, 3 players left. One of them had only the king, no other pieces or pawns. And at one moment he decided to resign. I did not notice that tiny gray message in the left right corner ("player ... resigned") and though that he is still playing. And then was surprised that he does not make a move in his turn. I think the 3rd player also did not notice that, because he did not try to eat that leftover king. If there are other pieces and/or pawns they become gray and we can see that this player left the game. But if there is only a king ... How to understand that? Looking at the timer placed in some of the 4 corners? It should be improved some way.7. The old version of the UI had the players list where we could see their time and score. It was easy to compare. Now we need to look at 4 corners to compare the points and to see who is likely to flag. That is very inconvenient. Should be fixed too. It may be an additional list (sorted by points?) or the old version of the UI.Thanks in advance.

A recent thread, https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/new-checkmate-dead-king-rule, was capped off with following comment: ignoble wrote: We are reverting this back to requiring the king to be captured. We agreed the new rule made positional luck a bigger factor and eliminated some of the risk often involved with capturing a dead king. Thanks for the feedback, guys! This brought to mind a deeper question. Has the development team considered a voluntary "beta-testing" strategy?1) Treat the base URL "chess.com/4-player-chess/" as the "stable release". Though it'd still have the same "this is experimental" disclaimer, the stable release should be a version of the code that's been widely vetted as providing great game-play with minimal bugginess. 2) Release experimental/beta variants to side URLs, e.g. "chess.com/4-player-chess/beta1/". For these beta releases: Publish URLs in these forums (and/or set up an opt-in mail distribution for beta testers) Establish "testing timeframes" for each variant; small windows of time that a lot of beta-testers can aim for (lest a small pool of beta-testers wind up waiting for hours for enough other beta-testers to get games underway) For each beta, publish a clear-cut description of "what's different" and a link to a sub-forum for feedback specifically related to those changes. Unless absolutely necessary (or desired), ensure beta games do not affect users' "stable release" ratings. I think it'd be a mutually-beneficial setup. For dev team, you'd no longer be limited to the current monolithic architecture that forces the rollout & testing of one combination of code & configuration changes at a time. You could whip up rule variants that drastically change fundamental aspects of the current version*, just to get a feel for how they impact play, without risk of suddenly upsetting entire user base with something that proves to be a bad/unworkable change.For end-user community, it allows for a clean separation of two types of end users: beta-testers (the kind of person who'd find inexplicable joy in the opportunity to play a variant that, say, rewards points at random, promotes pawns to pieces of the opponents army, and crashes if any knight captures any queen; just for the opportunity to write up bug reports / feedback after said game), and normal people :-). Based on what I've seen in this forum, I'm sure you'd find a small army of 4PC users who'd be thrilled to take on some beta-testing (especially if the "stable" version remained accessible for taking a break from test mode). Conversely, most end users would be happiest to use a stable variant (rarely buggy and where changes of behavior are infrequent and broadly considered "improvements") exclusively. * In the thread that inspired this, one such proposal that I'd endorsed was an idea of doing away with checks/checkmates/stalemate entirely... definitely the kind of drastic change that you'd want ample feedback on before unleashing it on the community as a whole.

I found a bug in 4 player chess while im doing a video recording. or did i miss something here? and this is not the only bugs i experiences since last night i end up to many mouse slip because im using the left mouse to show the arrow in the board then suddenly my pieces moves in that direction. its around 5:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Ub7SAbzhU&feature=youtu.be

I saw it posted but just got a game dropped we were about 10-15 moves into it no one took any pieces all 0 score. Game just ended Poof and we all ended up with 10 points and it said no one won. I heard a bleep right before it stopped the same one that say someone would hear after a person resigned but did not see anything that would indicate someone did and there was no reason for anyone to do so at that time no real advantage.