Guide: List of 'named' opening theories and game' principles (by skak4)

Hello everyone! The following is the knowledge that I have gathered from studying this game for a (not) very long time, to give you an insight of the game principles as well as how to play the opening correctly with red, blue, yellow, and green piece respectively. 

Without further ado, let dive straight into it. And by the way, my mother tongue is not English but I will try my best

I. The principles 

Like in regular chess, to be good at the games first you have to study the endgame, then be good at tactics, then you can study the opening. Why? Because to get the final victory, entering the '2 players' stage is inevitable. So make sure you are done with the endgame before reading all of this (seriously).

- Talking about the endgame, here in 4 ways chess it doesn't have too much difference. Like for example in the Rook endgame you (still) want to cut off the opponent' king with your rook instead of giving meaningless checks and improving their king' position (Yeah I saw that a lot), how to use 1 Queen to outmaneuver 1 King and 2 Pawns (not rare), and especially the King and Pawn endgame (block first then push not vice versa). For short, STUDY THE ENDGAME!!!.

Now the principles:

• If you are up materials in the '2 players' stage, trade down whenever possible. 
• How to castle properly: on the safer flank of course. It doesn't matter which side, just lock down one side and castle on that one, if you don't know how to do it then just try to put all your pieces as near at your king as possible. 
• Don't trade rook for bishop. People keep misunderstanding this. Although they give the same point, but don't have the same value. A rook can support pushing pawn later in the game without having to move back and forth like bishop. I once suggested that rook should be 5 point and bishop 4, but someone (frankly attending the final but shan't not be named) replied: 'Doesn't matter, the earth will still spin' something like that. Anyways, the rook is better than the bishop in regular chess for a reason, and so is it here.
• Don't avoid trading when it is better to do so. Sure avoid trading early in the game is good and you should do that (until the '3 players' stage). But under some circumstances by doing that you are also unnecessarily weakening your position (for example pushing a pawn to block a diagonal) meanwhile your pieces are being cramped up due to not having enough space in your camp. You may not realize, but trading also means removing threat. So don't afraid of trading bishop, bishop for knight, and of course, bishop for rook. 
• And I'm telling you, there is a secret of how to trade pieces properly among top players, which is: Only trade with one flank. By that, you can trade without breaking the balance, whereby increasing the chance of surviving as well as giving air for your opposite to deal with your other flank. Sometimes this lead to a situation like: Red vs Green & Yellow vs Blue happening simultaneously, but that is fine. 
• When you don't need to keep a rook in the corner near your king: When the flank is fully locked, like this: Like in this situation, you should castle instead of moving the king to the right (which didn't happen in the game ). Sure, wasting a few moves to get your king to d13 and get the rook out doesn't do much harm, right?   
    

There are still many more complicated principles to be discussed, like for example Which one to chose: Point advantage or Material advantage, but I'd stop here for now and keep that for later.                 

II. The openings 

The purpose of opening theory (like in every other games) is to achieve an optimal starting setup (for both attacking and defending) without spending much time thinking of the moves. With that, I reject the assertion 'This game has no opening theory because either you win or not is a matter of luck'. In fact, this might be true (for low-rated lever of play only, duh) . In most case, luck and chances only turn up in the middle of the game, which is why you have to defend properly in the opening in order to get those chances when they come. 

Before starting to go into specific openings, I'd say the addition of 'en passant' due to the update doesn't really have any significant impact on these theories, because they are highly emphatic on tempo (you will see what I mean). Maybe it will inspire a new opening (perhaps starting by pushing the rook pawn all the way to queen), but that is another story. 

1. The Clemenz Opening

• Characteristic: An aggressive opening which focuses on minimizing defense and controlling as much space as possible, seen playing the most and works best (up until now) with Red piece (also Yellow)
• Featured player: MegaLizardon-X  
• Setup: Castle right side, king in the corner, knights near center, pawns pushed as far as possible, rooks and queen on 3rd rank (to protect the d12/k3 pawn since it's very weak).
• Countermeasure: A eyeing at k3/d12 
• Example games with: - Red piece; Yellow piece (click to follow the link)
• Comment: Don't play this if you are a defensive (or neutral) player, because it doesn't work like that. This opening is suitable for early queening - late castling - style, because it can only be played after k4/d11 has been pushed, remember that, or you will have to suffer.    

2. The Cold System

• Characteristic: A defensive opening which focuses on locking (or keeping the tension with) the left side and slow play on the right side, seen playing the most and works best (up until now) with Blue piece and Green piece (usually with more defensive lines) 
• Featured player:   
• Setup: Castle right side, put left-side pawns on light squares, using dark bishop to control spaces in right flank' camp (at c9 c11 b8 with blue) or trade down with right flank, defensive queen.    
• Countermeasure: A light square  eyeing at h13/g2 diagonal 
• Example games with: - Blue piece; Green piece (click to follow the link)  
• Comment: Every pawn moves in this opening is crucial because you will easily be in a lot of trouble if some of them get pinned (that's why I called it system. a pawn move at not the right moment can break down the whole thing), so be careful. A good 'cold system' player should know when to push his 7-pawn to queen as smoothly as possible. 

3. The Dragon Opening

• Characteristic: A very defensive opening, can be played by all 4 piece (Easier to set up for Red and Yellow). By 'very defensive' I mean very solid, impenetrable, can not be broken through without at least 2 other players joining the attack. Strong, simple and flexible. The best opening ever existed up until this point.   
• Featured player: hest1805 (I'd say his dragon is invincible) 
• Setup: Starting with pushing the right rook-pawn, then slowly put every pieces on the right flank. Both knights are on the right side, the center pawns can be pushed and white bishop are free to roam.     
• Countermeasure: No countermeasure (from one flank) 
• Example games with: - Red piece; Yellow piece (click to follow the link)
• Comment: This is one of the most common opening of this game, and perhaps the easiest to play, but to play it to its full potential you'd need a lot of practice.   

4. The Hippo Opening

• Characteristic: Somewhat the same as The Dragon, but much slower. It can also be played by all 4 piece (Easier to set up for Blue and Green) You play about ten moves before deciding which flank to castle, sometimes even free the option of both side castling before deciding what to do. 
• Featured player: Fifth_something 
• Setup: Like I said, pretty much everything you do that free both-side castling gets the job done. Some of this opening features is: no pawn/piece exceeds the 3rd rank, queen behind bishops, the king walk,...       
• Countermeasure: Fast play (early queen for example) 
• Example games with: - Blue piece; Green piece (click to follow the link)
• Comment: This is the slowest opening. A very slow, defensive and lazy opening (hence the name) to play. Even there are some people being unbelievably lazy that after freeing both-side castling, they start... walking to one of the flanks, which completes the lazy masterpiece of a 20-moves opening. I truly do not recommend that.

(To be continued)

For those of you who may not know me, I am skak4 (also known as loveling129) - a player who once managed to get both accounts into top 20. But since my vice one has been banned (which is reasonable), I am just skak4 now. If you like my work feel free to show it, that would motivate me a lot. 

Thank you! 

way too lazy to read this

Rooks traditionly are worth more then bishops.

Woah this is amazing!

Very cool. Good guide. Although, it'd be good to mention that this applies to FFA. Teams is another beast entirely.

good work thanks

when i use this setup i always cant stand thinking about this

Yeah I know this opening xD. It is associated with Besher according to my study, but I didn't put it here because it is not that good, maybe sometimes in the future when I will reconsider when I have founded a better way to play it out. 

Amazing! Good work, I love reading the little theory that people make. 

Please, in the next post mention the Crab Opening that Fifth_Something haha, I use it almost always with a variant.

the openings can be explain better with a video with the movements....just saying... very good post!!

Aren't there more openings?
Can you make pictures, please?
Thanks

Good work, thx

Of course there are more, which are still in my studying progress. As a responsible creator, I want to study thoroughly each openings first (their strengths, weaknesses, optimal move order, etc...) before publishing them. And for that matter, the move orders of openings have not yet been included in this post, which was why I didn't attach any image.

I did understand everything I wrote, but to explain everything step by step (like for example why this piece should be here but not other square) yes I may need to make a video. I will consider this in the future (maybe making a Youtube channel or something I guess).

And btw I have finished my theory for the Crab Opening (No, I won't publish it as the 'Crab' opening but in other name). Right now I'm studying the alt' Queening Attack, which is in memory of the player a1t19. Maybe a couple of more openings and I will publish part 2.      

What about fiancetto on both flanks and pushing the center pawns? 

And what do you think about not castling?

Thx

I saw a lot of games that featured pushing center pawns and not castling. That may be playable in low- rated games, but not good up from 1500+ for these following reasons:

• This game has a principle which is different from regular chess: You shouldn't play on both side (flanks) of the board (at all), simply because you can not deal with both flanks at the same time.  Normally top players would quickly lock down one flank and push the pawns of the other, and that is the safest way to play.
• It is slow and risky. By 'slow' I mean while pushing the pawns you are also not developing your pieces, thus in case your pushed pawns were stopped/blocked (or even being sac on by a knight) you would be very behind in development and suffer many potential attacks. And by 'risky' I mean what if you opposite pushed their pawns as well?!
• Situation 1: Your and your opposite's pawns encounter each other and stop both from queening.
• Situation 2: You allow your opposite to queen first, in which case you would take the risk of being attacked by all 3 players since your king is still in the center. 
• Situation 3: Both you and your opposite allow each other to queen and start cooperating to attack the flanks. 

Of course as you can see, the best situation is number 3. But in exchange, its ratio is only 33.3%. So it is on you to decide to take the risk or not.

About the other question, fiancetto on both flanks at the start of the game is just a waste of time (also needlessly risky) due to a tactic that is both flanks attack your bishops at the same time by pushing their knight pawns.     

fiancetto and castling on king's side is always a good strategy.....

good shiz skak4 a lot of today's players could learn from this

there would be a place where this could be applied

https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=5044643

https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=5044798

These 2 games are proof (I played a variant of bongcloud (not behind king pawn as my opponents opened/partially opened the files towards my king) on move 2) that opening theories do not matter at all in higher rated games, it's more of skill and tactics. (e.g. the "opening" of all 4 players pushing their king pawn in first move, opening dangerous diagonals, will involve tactics about winning pieces and blocking them)

But there is a disadvantage of doing that in 2000+ games: If you castle kingside and your opponent to your kingside has not locked pawns or the position or has the potential to attack, you can simply be attacked with their rook and knight pawns. This will open files on the castled king and you will have some trouble defending it.