10 Basic Strategic Tips How to Play #4PlayerChess

THIS IS GREAT! (for beginners) thanks for sharing ideas!

just the board in that pic looks wrong... another free rank should be present in front of the pawns. like a rank #3 for pawns on rank #2 

this is for intermediate players too.. good job!

 about tip 10 I'd like to add that even if you see that you are not going to be first to capture the naked king, quite often the person who is gonna be there first is using a bishop or a queen to capture it and if you are just one move behind you can capture their bishop/queen for free, which makes the end situation 20 points for them and 9/5 points for you + one of their strong pieces is out.

I've had situations where I was left with 3, 1 timed out, and I let my opponent capture their king on purpose so I could take their queen, and then proceeded to walk over them with my material advantage.

@MainframeSupertasker thnx

@SilverByte  agree 100%

Tip 1, given obvious

Yo.. this is nice, good job to help those just coming to the game!

I will agree that 4player can be more fun, but.... to say chess boring?? waaaaa????

I think playing the 4' has you more ready your regular chess, and advancing your focus due so much more going on with 4player, seeing more than usual, and does truly help!

ThePEPSIChallenge

I know what I wrote is a 100% subjective feeling ... I like less predictability more psychology ... that is my character/nature of who I am

The psycological aspect indeed! 

@johnkuhles, Thank you for the tips. I sticked this topic to the top of the forum.

I like tip №7, it is true that your king should be protected better than other kings. A predator should consider some other king as an easy-to-catch victim.

@BabYagun appreciated and am honored  

I don't agree with 06. It's quite the opposite. Most of the time it is unnecessary and should be avoided, because it weakens you compared to the other players and it may weaken you more than your opponent (so arguably it's worse than an equal piece trade). The one with the extra queen(s) usually becomes a target and most of the time you can just take advantage of someone else's attack or threat to snatch a queen for free or you can give someone else the opportunity to grab a queen (and sacrifice a piece for it if they want to). Don't sacrifice your own pieces if you don't have to. It will only make the other two players happy.

@GDIIread Read Tip 06. Again, I did not claim "you must" ... even explained why it could be better not to sacrifice your Knight ... why did you decide to read it (interpreted it) perceived it as if you only think 1 dimensional thinking of my part? ... btw do have anything to say about all other 9 points? Would be great

I did read that part and I didn't say that you said you must exchange, but you said it is necessary most of the times, which I think is not true. I think most of the time it is unnecessary. I agree with the rest.

What I think about Tip 06 (I am not a top FFA player, just somewhere in Top 200  now, so my opinion is questionable) :

If that promoted queen belongs to a player opposite to me, I will let the queen go.
If it belongs to a player at left or right, I will highly likely sacrifice my knight.

I  think I'm considered a top FFA player and I can attest that those are all great tips,  aside from #2 and #9 which need some clarifications.

Also, Babyagun's input about  #6 is correct imo

Of course,   chess being what it is ,  there are general rules,  and there are exception to the rules. So these advice are true most of the time,  but not always.   For instance,  you could tolerate being checked by the player on your left if you can reason out that the other 2 players are too busy with other problems to have the time to exploit that check and you can gain something in the process.

So about Tip #2:   '' Not attacking the highest rated player early on ''   -Personally,  I dont really care about ratings,   I play what I think needs to be played. In general,   you should only attack early on when for some reason you feel that the player to the north will join in the attack.  If the player to the north is passive,  well you're gonna have a hard time... And you should never attack the player to the north before one of your flank players is eliminated.   ( Unless you see that he will be eliminated and that you can't do anything about it;  then its ok...  But expect to  end up sandwiched, and you're gonna have a hard time anyway.)

And about Tip #9:  You shoud basically be teaming with the player to your north, trying to gang up on one of the 2 other players. Untill one of the flank players is eliminated.  afterwich, anything goes!   There is a post on the forum by Martin0 which goes into more details about why that is:  '' Your best friend, backstabber and worst ennemy ''

Thanks Johnkules

Rule #4 is especially on point!

@Ne2willdo

thnx

by the way ... i did not make 10 "Rules" but just 10 Basic Strategic 4playerchess Tips

@ frustrated one with the avatar 

You have made it quite known you have been unfairly dealt with your points, ratings and, yes I know that's rather ridiculous but now they do too so just ease the frustrated posts so no coming down on you for silly reasons, okay? 

Hey... if it helps you any.... lol I once had over 50 correspondence games going and about 8 of them were rather fishy considering their beginning 15 moves as 300 less as a rating from how then their miraculous instant gained "as to increase 3 yrs experience" for positioning, so I decided to just blatantly throw all 50 + games and start anew, lol and even lost many after that to see how far my rating could drop! Lol had I known anything about the unbelievable sandbagging silly technique would I never had done! I found out about that one time while chatting to someone in one of the threads, and it came up and I relayed this to them. lol

For a great example of Tip#4 and a crazy and interesting game, check out the original post in @LadyVictoria thread:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/fantastic-games-1