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Yesterday I met with this phenomenon, but I did not make a screenshot. But it just happened again with DragonB70: Quite a stupid way to claim win to let the clock down...

Hello All!In normal chess you only have one motive and that it to take the other player's king. So checks have to be stopped and once your king has no places to run and is in check (checkmate) your dead. In 4 player chess there is no motive to beat a single player but get the most points. So when a check is given it is not necessary for them to take the king as doing this itself does not win the game. Based on this I think there should be an option to ignore checks, and you should only lose once the king is actually taken (not in checkmate). Take for example the case where I get checked by the person to the left of me but notice when the other 2 players move that his queen is now being threatened. I could risk it and let my king be put on check and assume that the person on the left wants to play for a win and keep his queen. Like wise say for example my king is checked right in front with a bishop. Because its not necessary that he would take my king like in a classical 1 v 1 I think I should theoretically be able to take his rook and risk him not recapturing. Furthermore rather than deeming checkmate immediately other players moves should be considered. For example in this one game I was playing this guy who was dominating the game with a few queens and had his bishop and queen lined up on another players king. He was checkmated but because I wanted to keep winning chances alive, I was thinking of obstructing his bishop and queen with my rook and allow the now checked player to take the other players queen. There are many other instances but based on the idea that four player chess is based of on points and not the sole purpose of finishing one opponents king of, I think losing should be based of when the king is taken. Interested in hearing other people's thoughts thanks, Richard Fairley

What can you do if your opponents just clearly collude with each other like this? It's just so frustrating as it happened with me so many times before. Each time usually costs a lot of ratings as cheaters are usually lower rated players... I don't really have a solution for this, though maybe a report functionality would be nice?! Check out video.

I spectated a game. When it finished I decided to rewind a few moves. But the left arrow rewinds all the moves at once to the very beginning of the game. And then the right arrow returns the game to its final move. In a single click.

I heard that the server is back up again and is functioning for the majority of all the players out there. For some reason I still cannot connect to the server and I have tried my wifi but it is not working. Anybody experiencing the same? How to troubleshoot this problem? Somebody let me know. Thx Richard.

I was playing four-player chess when one of the players (username: TylerApple) started swearing and using racial slurs. I tried to disable chat. The message went up that one of the players had disabled chat, then the same player was able to continue chatting and being a jerk. Here's a screenshot. Not only is this a bug, but that player (TylerApple) should be banned.

This just came up in my most recent game. There are 3 players left. Red is out and guaranteed 4th with 4 points. Yellow is way behind (7 points, not close to promotion, not much material, sandwiched between myself and the other player) Green has [38?] points, but not a ton of material. Blue has [11?] points, good position, and a lot of material. As blue is closing in on yellow, they resign, leaving blue a couple of moves from snatching the yellow king. As blue moves in on the yellow king, also attacking green's unguarded rook, green resigns. This gives blue just 20 points from green, but not the 20 that blue was about to get from yellow. I think it may have been split 10 to each? The final score is Green=48 Blue=31 Yellow=7 Red=4. If one of the last 2 players resigns when there is an open king on the board, I think the non-resigning player should get the points for both remaining kings. It's one thing that 1st can decide who gets 2nd and who gets 3rd, but at least they earned that power. It seems silly that 3rd can decide who gets 1st and who gets 2nd. Does this scenario end the way the powers that be believe that it should? I can see the argument for leaving it, as it encourages a little more action to make sure no one gets too far ahead, but I think the cons outweigh the pros. It also leads to more resigning, as 3rd can now resign in spite, giving the resign some actual power.

I think it's safe to say that I went kind of mad... Pretty cool though! This might be a record.

Hi, maybe, it can be an idea if there is 3 players check? I find that more interesting because the board is shorter, it is an more active game, and to find 3 players is easier than 4 players.

After viewing one of "dubiousskills" excellent videos, I felt it served as a perfect example of "auto-claim-win" improving the game. The video is titled "4 PLAYER CHESS COMMENTARY (100+ POINTS) 1745!!" Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuJkggoFy4 Dubiousskills' channel (highly recommended!) : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCntDXISnx7OSZZ4fcueapzg/videos I recommend watching the whole game. But my emphasis here is on play from the time green captures yellow's king (at 23:30). After this capture, there are three players left: green, red, and blue. Green quickly parlays his king-capture into utter dominance; leading both blue and red by 10+ points, 2 queens, and positional soundness (e.g. king safety, pawn structure, etc). By the 25:00 mark, it's clear that even if blue and red 100% conspired, taking green down would be a long shot. However, while first place is almost certainly out of reach, blue and red have a dead-heat battle for 2nd: blue has a +11 point advantage, while red is up in material and has a better position. This is the point of game where I believe the auto-claim-win feature would begin to objectively improve the game better for all three players. Green's strategy becomes very clear: 1) maintain (or extend) point-lead 2) weaken blue & red until one of them can be checkmated. Meanwhile, by this same 25:00 mark, blue & red are clearly in a "battle for distant 2nd". Both should realize "Green will be aiming to checkmate one of us to secure the win." With "auto-claim-win", they would also realize "Whoever green doesn't checkmate will get +20 points". As such, blue would have 2 realistic ways to beat red: Aggressive: extend the 11-point lead to a 20+ point lead over red, such that even if green checkmates blue first, red's +20 point bonus won't be enough to catch up. Look for ways to exchange rooks/bishop with green to boost lead. Defensive: With an 11-point lead, red's only hope to win is if green decides that it's easier to checkmate blue than red. Defend blue king at all costs; and, if possible, try to make an attack on red's king more attractive to green by weakening red's king defenses. Perhaps even sacrifice any material that isn't defending blue king in a way that opens up red's king. Make the "mate-red-for-win" as lucrative to green as possible. Red meanwhile has two similar strategies: 1) Long-shot: super aggressive aim to gain 31+ points over blue before green can mate red (maybe possible if a pawn or two can be promoted and green allows a lot of piece exchanges). 2) More realistically: use material/positional advantages to ensure blue is mated first (there's really not much hope of gaining the 31+ points on blue). Defend red king and make "mate-blue-first" more attractive to green than "mate-red-first". Skip to 32:00 to see how the lack of auto-claim-win sours the game overall. Red winds up doing a worse job than blue (IMO). Red does overcome blue's +11 point lead, but only to pull ahead by a meager +4 points (about half of the +31 needed to justify an "aggressive" strategy). Worse, in working to gain these points, red has also failed on the second strategy: neglecting king safety, leaving red open to the quick&easy mate from green at 32:30. And this is where things go bad (IMO). Green has to make an ethical decision: to claim win (giving blue +20 and second place), or to play to checkmate blue (giving red the win with +4 points). I don't think it's good sport to force green into making this decision; and I *really* don't think it's good sport to leave red&blue's fate in green's hands. Frankly, I could see either red or blue feeling a little bitter/cheated, regardless of whether green chose to claim-win. However, the lack-of-auto-win played a role in red's decision. It introduced a random variable: since red couldn't count on green to auto-claim win, allowing blue to retain even a sliver of a lead would lead to risk that green mates blue, doesn't claim-win, then mates red. Anyway it plays out, I think the lack of auto-claim-win makes the ethical choice of "claim win, yes or no" a dominating factor of the 3-players-remaining dynamic. This is a problem, because that ethical choice has nothing to do with how skillfully either of the other two players choose to play.

This was discussed in the king capture discussion. It makes sense and stops some forms of win resignations that are not about good tactics, but rather luck and opportunity.

The rules related to multiple checks should be clarified... I mistakenly thought a "standard" double check (i.e. a move causing multiple pieces to simultaneously attack one king) would be awarded with points. Was anyone else confused by this? Rule should instead be worded "A move placing 2 opponents in check simultaneously will be awarded +5, and 3 opponents simultaneously will be awarded +15" or something to that effect.

Hi all, Just thought I'd put forward a suggestion that has probably also been mentioned elsewhere. In any case, feel free to discuss. Background: As a player rated close to 1700, any mechanics that increase variance tend to annoy me. Chief among these is when the timing of a resignation changes the outcome of a game. There are many cases to consider, not all of which will have an easy fix, but I think there is at least one which could be fixed with little effort, and would be considered by most to be a quality of life improvement. The case with an easy fix: The points for uncaptured kings should go to the last remaining player in the case that all other players have been removed from the game (for any reason). The case with an easy fix, example under current ruleset: In an endgame, the following situation may arise: Player A: 50 points, low piece count Player B: 40 points, dead Player C: 60 points, low piece count Player D: 15 points, high piece count Player A is about to be mated by Player D and resigns. Player C immediately resigns, and Player D is left in 4th place (35 points) with a high piece count. This happens more often than you might think, and I have been on both the receiving and giving end of the deal. Under the proposed change, Player D would also get the 20 points for Player A's king and finish in 2nd place (55 points). Discussion Questions: 1. Do you think the way the game deals with this example right now is a logical extension of the "Claim Win" philosophy (a philosophy which I happen to agree with)? 2. Would the proposed change work as intended, or create new arbitrage opportunities? 3. Can you think of any other changes that would be clear-cut cases to reduce resignation timing variance?

(To address https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/resigning-1 and similar topics) When the disconnection bug (aka "you can only connect once") is finally fixed. It may be a good idea to do this: If there are 4 players and a player resigns (or "disconnects") during the first N moves (20? 30?) this player should have less time in the next game. When he starts the next game all other players will have 1 minute + whatever the increment is, but that player should have, let's say 30 seconds + increment.Now it is unfair, but will be fine when we have a stable server.

i found this bug when i tried to review one of the games. The right and left arrow is not working properly you can find the video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TpCb0TAVTY&feature=youtu.be thanks.

I have this problem on both Firefox and Chrome so I don't think it's my browser. As you can see, the format is glitchy and disorganised in many other ways. I don't know if anyone has mentioned this already as I haven't been active on the forums lately, but any help in fixing this would be appreciated.

So Recently, I just played a game. My score was 1272 when I went into the game, when it ended, I came out with 1289 The scores were Player 1: 80 Player 2: 74 Riptidejr: 72 Player 4: 0 Shouldn't I have gotten like 68 points?

I have experienced some pretty nasty lag tonight. Some moves are played quickly, some take a few seconds, and every once in a while, I get a move that takes 20+ seconds to record. Are you having the same issues? If so, how long is it taking for your moves to be played?

In regular chess underpromoting a pawn to rook or bishop is rarely beneficial, and only serves as a tactical mean to avoid stalemating your opponent. Not so in 4-player chess. The range of possibilities is much wider. You could opt to underpromote for at least the following reasons:1) To avoid threatening an opponent. If your new queen is attacking an opponent's queen, and he has another piece under attack, he'll probably prefer to save his queen by capturing your new queen. But if you promote to a non-threatening piece, your piece may survive! 2) To avoid recapture by a pawn. If your new queen can be captured by a pawn, she WILL be captured more often than not. But an advanced pawn is valuable by itself, so your opponent may decide not to exchange it with a lesser piece. 3) To avoid checking an opponent. A non-threatening opponent may be ready to wreck havoc at the base of the top dog. You don't want to disturb this "friend" by checking him. So you can underpromote to a non-checking piece.There would be even more possibilities if promoted pieces had the same value as the original ones. In this case promoting in general would become less compelling, and underpromoting could become the norm.