I think h4 is a really good first move for Red.
Lets analyze!
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I am patzer and know only what's the worst move: i4. (Standing for i-i_i-i)
1.e4 controls d5 and f5 . It also opens up red's light bishop towards blue's queen knight pawn and this can look to place itself on the e2 square where it has a lot of scope. This will also mean that red gets on both diagonals first and hence may prevent blue and green from deploying their light bishops in a similar manner. But red can do a lot more with his first move right? In 4PC, the queen is 4 times as deadly (intended) unlike normal chess and so don't you think a pawn move that increases the scope of the most powerful piece right from move 1 is something to consider?
And also notice that the pawn on e4 will be undefended and to prevent the loss of a pawn, a critical tempo might need to be wasted to defend it. I'm not saying that pawns moving 2 steps at once is a bad thing but right from the start might mean that they're a bit over extended and become vulnerable at some point.
Here's a snap for a visual.
Probably one of the worst moves : i4. It exposes the king and the pawn is undefended. I'd say that this is playing right into the opposing hands. But atleast the king knight has the i3 square to work with. A worse move would be a pawn move to i3.
@MegurineLuka999999 I notice you changed the 'e4' to 'h4' 
Yeah, I agree that h4 is probably one of the best first moves for Red. It opens the queen's and bishop's diagonals giving Red some strong dark square control. It also prevents Blue and Green from moving their king pawns because of opening traps (I ran into this on my first 4PC game). This also doesn't expose the Red king since its the pawn in front of him that has moved. But h3 remains a more popular option because the h pawn remains protected while it has the same benefits as the h4, don't you think?
Another point to make is that after h4, you will almost never play g4 because it will expose the king a bit too much. So you will end up playing g3 at some stage and might have to block in your dark bishop. But even in the case of h3, the light bishop is the bad bishop. So you will end up with a bad bishop.
One of the best first moves.
Nov 22, 2019
0
#9
I meant h4 lol. I'm used to the king's pawn up 2 being called e4 althougb that's not the case in 4-player chess.
Nov 22, 2019
0
#10
I agree that h3 seems good and if you play j3 or j4 you might not end up with a bad bishop.
Trust me, ya will never figure out whats the best move.
AchillesYouTube wrote:
Yeah, I agree that h4 is probably one of the best first moves for Red. It opens the queen's and bishop's diagonals giving Red some strong dark square control. It also prevents Blue and Green from moving their king pawns because of opening traps (I ran into this on my first 4PC game). This also doesn't expose the Red king since its the pawn in front of him that has moved. But h3 remains a more popular option because the h pawn remains protected while it has the same benefits as the h4, don't you think?
Another point to make is that after h4, you will almost never play g4 because it will expose the king a bit too much. So you will end up playing g3 at some stage and might have to block in your dark bishop. But even in the case of h3, the light bishop is the bad bishop. So you will end up with a bad bishop.
One of the best first moves.
I strongly dislike h4; h3 opens the same lines without exposing the king as much and also allows Bg3 to make sense.
AchillesYouTube wrote:
1.e4 controls d5 and f5 . It also opens up red's light bishop towards blue's queen knight pawn and this can look to place itself on the e2 square where it has a lot of scope. This will also mean that red gets on both diagonals first and hence may prevent blue and green from deploying their light bishops in a similar manner. But red can do a lot more with his first move right? In 4PC, the queen is 4 times as deadly (intended) unlike normal chess and so don't you think a pawn move that increases the scope of the most powerful piece right from move 1 is something to consider?
And also notice that the pawn on e4 will be undefended and to prevent the loss of a pawn, a critical tempo might need to be wasted to defend it. I'm not saying that pawns moving 2 steps at once is a bad thing but right from the start might mean that they're a bit over extended and become vulnerable at some point.
Here's a snap for a visual.
I would not concern myself with hanging the pawn per se; pawns are worth very little until the endgame. The reason to defend the pawn would be to stop penetration along the e-file by a major piece, but if its capture allows your own rook out, losing the pawn is a good thing.
You will play with the dark bishop in the early game so it is ok to block it in with h3.
@xiongyunuo The determination of the best move is certainly possible. We just look at what move give the most amount of benefits and creates the least amount of problems.
Tell me then, what's the best first move of 2 player chess. You will certainly get lots of opposing arguments no matter what you say.
@WindowsEnthusiast h4 is definitely a bit more problematic to Red than h3 and then reason is because if it was not one of the pawns in front of my king, I would't be rambling about it right now. And my ultimate goal is to rank the opening moves so that each side can choose from a variety of top moves. #KingSafety is everything.
We have pros and cons for every move but since the point is to approach the situation from a human view of the best moves so that we can avoid playing hope chess vs humans. Anyone who is acquainted with the story of AlphaZero and LeelaChessZero will know how strong human approaches can be to a brain sucking game like chess. If you ask a traditional engine or program, it will tell you that d4 is the best move but from the human point of view, e4 is the way to go. Max advantage and least disadvantage right from move 1. We have a taste for both chaos (attacking chess) and intellect (positional chess) and would be a solid proof why a vast majority of the human population still open with e4 despite what computer programs/algorithms say.
You may want to have a look at this:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Four-Player_Chess/Common_openings
Feel free to contribute.
Hello 4PC community! I'm Achilles a.k.a. Anirudh from India if you want to call me by my real name (but I'd prefer if you called me by my handle) and I'm a die-hard fan of 4PC and want to see this become a real competitive sport like chess itself. Regardless of the amount of time you get to spend on the game, you can certainly find the time to contribute to it if you are reading this article right now. And for the sake of fair play and competitiveness, I shall not be looking into FFA or other game modes.
I'm a greatly analytical guy and so plan on crafting opening theory and studies for 4PC. The reason I choose to go for the opening is because we can actually improve our focus on what's actually going on in a position (like come on people, no matter how good you are it's still a large board) and how the ideas/strategies will change with every move as the position evolves with every move. You can also clearly realize that one move can ruin a plan that seemed to be crushing to the opposing(pay attention to how I'm saying 'opposing' and not 'enemies' because as humans we may have many opponents but never a single enemy) sides or combinations that were once there might not be there anymore. So enough of my blabbering and here is my question:
If you are using any other color, what according to you is the best first move for the side that moves first? Let's discuss in the comments section of this article. Also, unless you have problems with the default colors I would recommend not changing them for the purpose of the people who may discuss in forums and articles using the default settings.
More importantly, send me a friend request. If you'd like to contact me then do so on my Twitter using @achillesyoutube, Instagram using @nf_achillesyt and Facebook using NfAchillesYt. My email address for any emails: theachillesyt@gmail.com. And for those wondering about the YT in my name, I plan to make 4PC and chess videos in the near future.