[Survey] Teams king capture rules

Let's say in 2nd pictures red king has no squares left for his king to move and has to move the knight. So, by your rule red has to suicide by moving knight? Seriously? How does this make any common sense in chess?

1st example: yes blue can take the yellow king, game over. (could also take the yellow Q of course)

> How does red stop this?

red moved before blue. he was in check (and couldn't take blue king) so he has to move out of check. no way to stop it.

2nd example: blue eats yellow king of course. this is just the prime example: red moving the N is just a terrible move! by all means of chess logic, such a move has to be fatal. in 2pc the N would be pinned. Allowing the N to "unpin" should change nothing, the king shall be captured next move. The yellow king gets captured first. No matter how you twist it, the logic is the same: even if allowed unpinning in 2pc, to give a check or even a checkmate, the opponent will just take your king, he gets there first, he wins, it's too late, nothing else matters.

The good example is this one:

Here we do see slight shift in strategy: to play for a king capture is stronger that to play for a checkmate. This to me is justified though. A king capture is just better/more direct than a checkmate. A checkmate implies a king capture will follow, but it will always be one move slower than actually taking the king.

To me the problem is that this is somewhat contradictory to the example in post #16 which shows that the first to capture the king does not always win. So I think we should combine the suggested king capture rules with a new rule that pieces shall be pinned to teammates king (which has also been suggested many times in the past).

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">yes, KC yellow king by green possible only in case that in last move yellow captured green king 

huh? yellow captures greens king -> green next and dead -> green cannot do anything."

I thought you will understand that it was a joke

"your first example picture: i don't understand. yellow checkmates green, green is next, green is dead, game over. nothing changes."

yes, it shows that is important what happens to the player’s king during his turn,  not  with enemy kings during their turn's

the whole logic of the game is based on first creating  threat to the opponent on his move, pieces not able to protect the own king on his move must be "frozen"

"The thing that is disturbing is that Yellow moving his rook is not losing on the spot"

this situation should  be interpreted same,  if it was blue discovery

"An alternative solution might be to pin pieces to teammates king, not allowing them to move"

"new rule that pieces shall be pinned to teammates king"

 reminded me castling with enemy bishop - funny but very strange

green take rook and red checkmated? make difference is bishop green or blue?

red stalemated? but anyway yellow king was under check (or mate)  threat

if in 1st your example yellow leaves red king under green bishop (for ex. check to blue ) and green king was not under check threat - means that r/y team was too slow according to green and "payment" is KC red

again, the player must solve problems with his king on his turn, otherwise the game must be played against double white and double black teams with choosing  order of team moves 

"The current rules allow for tactics that go against common chess logic. The suggested rule is an attempt to fix this loophole."

greens turn and instead of spending time to move "useless" m10 pawn following by blue check threat to yellow  - b/g team able to make same  threat for "half" team move, ex. - Ne8 and Bn9

green didnt lose time according to red, also make "double" move against yellow like in Marseillais chess

logically r/y team first created threat and could reasonably suppose that b/g need to spent "full" move to create not changing anything threat , the presence of  this loophole much complicates calculation of the future gameplay.

"To me the problem is that this is somewhat contradictory to the example in post #16 which shows that the first to capture the king does not always win"

hmm, didnt understand - so in suggested rule after Qf1 red cannot capture blue king, but why? or green cannot play Qf1 for pin reason?

Ok I got confused about #16. Of course Red can capture the blue King (unless it's FFA).

I guess I'm not sure about the pinning. On the one hand it does seem like pinning would be much closer to the logic of regular chess. On the other hand not pinning makes for some fun tactics. That said, should pieces even be pinned to ones own king?? because another way of looking at it is that pieces should only be pinned by pieces belonging to the player to the left of the king they are pinned to.

As for your last example, yes, threats to capture a king are stronger threats than checks or checkmates, so you do need to adjust a bit.

point with pinned piece - is move order

if player cannot move pinned to  teammate's king piece -  he cannot leave teammate's king under any + threat

it make sence in gameplay with choosing order  moves like: 1. r g 2. y g 3. y+ (to blue)  b (blue response is forced, of course if green cannot cover blue king) 

if in 1st example not possible to move blue bishop , then in 2nd only options for blue - is take somehow red rook or  KC yellow, any other move is illegal

difference with 1st and 3rd examples - order of moves:  in 3rd ex. green already made a move according to yellow and  decided to "pin" blue bishop, in 1st and 2nd ex. green didn't make a move according to red and need to responce to it on his turn

if in 3rd ex. blue decided to move B without any check threat to yellow -  it means that green prolong time according to yellow and opportunity to KC green looks logical

about priority KC > check or CM ,  i think reasonably to attract for survey  experienced players 4pc teams, preferably 2000-2100+ ( according to FFA - also top FFA players) ,  opinion majority of peoples could be different with your or my interpretation

I'm no longer sure I understand what the point is you are trying to make. But I am very grateful for your examples and for taking the time to discuss these things . Obviously you have a much better feel for teams games than I do.

Please take a moment to go to the test server https://www.chess.com/4pc-test and try things out on the analysis board there.

At the moment I've installed the rule that pieces are only pinned by pieces that move immediately afterwards (the color of the king doesn't matter, it's the color of the attacker that matters):

this bishop is pinned:

this bishop is not pinned:

..regardless if it's a red or a yellow king.

Please play around on the test server and tell me what do you think? Does this make any sense? To me it seems to solve the problem of the original example by simply not letting the yellow rook move.

The king capture rules are also implemented on the test server, so you can always ignore a check or a pin to capture a king. (remember it's only ever possible to capture the king of the player who is next to move)

As soon as blue plays Bm9, the alarm bells have to go off for Yellow. It is the strongest possible, most direct threat that exists in the game. Still looks very natural to me that Yellow has to give priority to not loosing his king to a KC, over checking blue. He should just move his king or block the threat by the blue B, or check Green.

I was on a test server, rule with a pin  has a serious flaw - the game may continue after CM on the board

better to illustrate it on typical game situation

yellow turn, yQa6 and rQc8 no longer chechmate, after  gQl8  b/g "able" to take both queens

the only defense against similar double queen threat should be check to red or "mechanical" block red Q, but not slow defence like in example ( also possibility for green  to  checkmate yellow - the game will end when turn comes to yellow)

in this example CM works standardly, though if imagine that green can make Nxa6 move - we get position from the previous example

Yes, in  post  #52  r/y can avoid KC by giving check to green or block green pawn or blue B. But in 4pc teams last 2 scenarios are very rare - often team selected one target, it means that his partner usually have safe king. Blocking threat also difficult , because the board is too large  and often is no more than 2-3 active pieces. That's why the game is aimed to open enemy king, logically check  threats against him should prevent double attack against partner.

Problem is when the threat KC is coming, it may be unavoidable in 2-3 moves, despite that one player's king  is very open.

Slidely edited position from real game,  but the meaning is the same

green is outplayed and will have to get forced mate in 2 from yellow , single blue cannot CM red 

but suddenly gQg3+ makes unavodable KC red in 2 , despite logically green cannot help blue for reason of yellow checks

to prevent such a scenario r/y were supposed to attack blue instead of green, if the position happened as a result of a forced play - they should have made that decision many moves earlier, which is close to impossible

This is crazy

> has a serious flaw - the game may continue after CM 
If you define checkmate as a position where there is no way to avoid KC, then this should simply not count as checkmate, because evidently no forced KC follows. And the flaw is that this does count as checkmate under the current rules.

It doesn't really seem fair that the blue N be pinned. Besides, if it were a green N instead, it would not be pinned, and it wouldn't be checkmate either.

As for the 2nd example, I'm afraid I don't understand. Perhaps post the pgn? here is the position:

[StartFen4 "G-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0-6,yK,1,yB,5/4,yP,yP,1,yP,yP,5/5,yN,yP,7/13,gK/2,bP,9,gP,1/1,bP,bB,6,yR,yQ,3/bK,1,bP,4,yB,6/10,gQ,3/14/1,bP,7,rQ,4/bR,bP,2,rN,1,rP,7/5,rP,1,rP,6/5,gR,bN,rK,rP,5/14"]
[Variant "Teams"]
[RuleVariants "EnPassant"]
[CurrentMove "1"]

1. Qk7-g3+

To me it's illogical that the yellow rook in the original example is not pinned. And it's also illogical that a piece be pinned when there is no threat for a KC if it's moved:

Why can Red not move his N? The example shows a situation where there is no danger in moving the N. It should be up to Red to decide if he wants to move his N or not.

The "same" situation, where Y need not hesitate to move his N, as there is no danger. (And this is possible under current rules)

I'm aware these rules do constitute a significant change to the current rules, and would likely meet a lot of resistance by players, simply because it's "not what we are used to". (I remember all the complaints about en-passant, not because the rule didn't make sense, rather because players just don't like to have to adjust to changes.)

So I am suggesting these rules (only pin to a piece that is next to move, KC > check or pin), because I think they are more logical than the current rules. I can't think of a better solution to the problem presented in the original example of this thread (other than perhaps just the making capture-the-king variant the default for teams).

So my question is: Can you think of a different solution for the issue in the original example? Would you prefer to not change the rules at all, for the sake of not having to adjust? Or do you think the suggested change doesn't make sense from a chess-logics point of view?

We get back to basics meaning of checkmate. If if interpreted it as KC on next move - then of course in 4pc player (team) will be defeated only in case his king will be captured, not CM, like in clear CapK variant.

Should remind that in 2pc  KC - is illegal move and CM doesn't means KC next turn for several centuries, and stalemate is a draw , not a win for that reason. It's just the rules, does not matter they are good or bad.

In 1st picture #56 any red N jump means that red can  make any random move  against check to his king and just ignore it, like in CapK. In 2nd picture yelllows turn and  they can move any yellow piece, which will not leave under threat yellow's king. Any blue check according to red - is a new turn, to which red will respond on their turn. Difference with green R - according to red - it's old green turn on which red already responded. So if yellow decided to move his N with green R  - he give opportunity to KC (punishment for prolonging time).

To the questions:  issue in the original example - in CapK variant it's a clear possiblity to KC , as any other random green move. If according to the rules game continues by CM,  unfortunately  green need to move his king.

I do not think that changes to CapK is good or bad, any rules may to exist.  It's not a problem do adjust to the any changes. En passant - rule  that makes 4pc closer with 2pc, i think it's logical that pawn double jump can't block immediately enemy pawn. I guess many players choose 4pc because it is interesting variant which have close rules and gameplay with 2pc. CapK - rule, that also have a  logic, but completely changes gameplay and  makes 4pc very far from 2pc  - no longer exist "check" , "mate" ,"stalemate" , castling is possible on "fire" square, the game will continue with 4 naked kings and possible that  king's of beginners players  will be under KC threats during many moves etc. 

to the picture of # 54

on current rules b/g is lost for the reason that green cannot help blue to make threats against red

with added KC>CM b/g forced wins

[StartFen4 "G-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0-6,yK,1,yB,5/4,yP,yP,1,yP,yP,5/5,yN,yP,7/13,gK/2,bP,9,gP,1/1,bP,bB,6,yR,yQ,3/bK,1,bP,4,yB,6/10,gQ,3/14/1,bP,7,rQ,4/bR,bP,2,rN,1,rP,7/5,rP,1,rP,6/5,gR,bN,rK,rP,5/14"]
[Variant "Teams"]
[RuleVariants "EnPassant CaptureTheKing"]
[CurrentMove "9"]

1. Qk7-g3+
2. Kh2xQg3 .. Bc9-h4+ .. Qk9-n9+ .. Kn11-m11
3. Kg3-h2 .. Ng2-e3+ .. Qn9xm10+ .. Rf2xKh2#

in CapK r/y again wins

[StartFen4 "G-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0,0,0,0-0-6,yK,1,yB,5/4,yP,yP,1,yP,yP,5/5,yN,yP,7/13,gK/2,bP,9,gP,1/1,bP,bB,6,yR,yQ,3/bK,1,bP,4,yB,6/10,gQ,3/14/1,bP,7,rQ,4/bR,bP,2,rN,1,rP,7/5,rP,1,rP,6/5,gR,bN,rK,rP,5/14"]
[Variant "Teams"]
[RuleVariants "EnPassant CaptureTheKing"]
[CurrentMove "8"]

1. Qk7-g3+
2. Kh2xQg3 .. Bc9-h4+ .. Qk9-e3 .. m10-k10
3. Kg3xNg2 .. Ra4-a6 .. Qe3xRf2

I am FOR including checked player taking any piece's king in TEAMS. I think the situation arises more often in teams than FFA anyway. This should apply for both scenarios, including,

1. The checker's king captured by the checked. Blue revealing a check on both by red on his teammate (green) and green on red, yellow makes random move, and green captures red king. 

2. A non-checker's king captured by the checked. https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=2689143-115 green just takes red king even though yellow is the one checking green.

Green playing Qd4+ (r+) in the following https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=2812095-35

And red takes the king of the non-checker because that king obviously dies before red's, killing the checker as well.

I agree with e4bc4qh5qf7 only the first one, since to me, capturing the (only) checking player's king nullifies the check by them by virtue of killing their army. However, in other situations (including when the other opponent also gives check), one more move should be played; if the other side manages to capture a king as well, then the game should be declared a draw. Otherwise, this is just the king-capture variant; however, another option could be to convert the existing rule into a variant and promote king capture to "standard rules" status.

Agreeing with @windowsenthusiast, only checking player's king can be captured if there's only one checker.

I'm also ok if the rules don't get changed at all.

Why declare it a draw? There are still two players alive that can battle it out. 

This is Teams, not FFA.