Dragging us down with them

A common theme in Raji seems to be Spite Moves, or moves from opponents that don't gain them anything, but also drag you down at the same time.

The beautiful thing about Raji is that sometimes the difference is so subtle, that you really have to analyse afterwards whether it was a spite move, a true stroke of genius, or something in between.

Consider the following opening trap for Green in the following game, that ScatteredWealth posted recently in Max's topic about Hyper Raji.

https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=10970118-34 

I've seen the trap a few times and it is unpleasant for Green. The only move they can make is to take the Yellow pawn, and then be swiftly mated by the Red Bishop, for a grand total of 1 point. 

But consider the game from Yellow and Red's perspective. For Yellow, it doesn't gain them anything apart from a load of dead pieces in front of them, LOSING a pawn, and not getting any points for the effort. Not only that, but they haven't a space for the King to run to, or developed the bishop in the first few moves - whereas if they were to Fianchetto it, they would probably end up trading immediately with Red in this case as Red would seek to save his Ship and Pawn on the Diaganol.

Red on the other hand, loses the player to their right, get's 3 points for mating Green (assuming Green makes the only move that gains them a point by taking the yellow pawn, and makes life difficult for Yellow.

Blue could be in a mix of positions depending on what they open with, if Red has played King pawn then either they have too, or they've played Bishop pawn and have the King escaping there.

My point is that on the face of it this looks like a nice bit of mating strategy in the opening against Green, but it only really benefits Red, and not Yellow who has to be complicit in it.

Anyone else have any interesting traps/spite moves that aren't quite what they seem?

Im not sure I could post any off the top of my head.... I've encountered plain spite moves without a hint of logic though. Where a player would sac a bishop just to kill me.

You know JooWon from 4PC? So many knight for pawn sacks to try and get my rook...

theres one problem with ur logic oatey, green being gone helps all the players so it benefits yellow too

it may benefit red more but i think its worth it for yellow

Hmm I think only very very marginally, in this case Green resigns and so Yellow can get the King anyway, but if Green had played the best move possible and taken the pawn, it's not great for Yellow - yes they won't finish 4th but I think it makes them a lot more likely for 3rd

no, prob second

whoever is left in the middle of two opponents during a 3 way will likely get third so yellow prob gets 2nd in most cases and blu 3rd

Usually yes, but not with this trap. Look at Yellow King after 3 moves... If blue had played king pawn opening then Yellow would be getting punished

And what you've just said doesn't make sense because in the example above Red is in the best position after Green is out, then Blue, then Yellow

Perhaps yellow was hoping green would not make the best move possible.  The difference between 1 pt and 0 pts is pretty meaningless, so it's quite possible ScatteredWealth would make a move that benefitted yellow the most (as he did in the game).  Chaturaji is a game of psychology as well as tactics, as we all know.  This really isn't any different than some 3-king endings we've seen, where one player is locked into 3rd place but they still get to decide which of the other 2 wins.

If I were green in that situation, I would always make whatever move damaged yellow the most / gave my points to red, simply to discourage that kind of targeting in the future.  But there is nothing that can prevent it from happening if yellow decides it's worth the risk.