What about placing the teammates NEXT TO each other in 2v2?

About 80% of these 2v2 games end in the first 5-10 moves, and as far as I see, those very short checkmates could be avoided with placing the partners next to each other. This would make the bishops harder to activate, for instance, moving your king's pawn would open only one diagonal against an opponent, the second would aim at your mate. The kings could castle into real safety, where there are less diagonals to use against one's king.

Let's say 

Matching: The highest and lowest 'elo' players are mates.

Moves could be:

1) Weaker 1 - Stronger 2 - Stronger 3 - Weaker 4,

2) -||-

(or whatever)

This could reduce the number of very short games, and could also lead to more tactical games, where the knights and pawns have more role.
What do you think?

I like it.

I agree. Cuz those high rated players always bring their queen out and checkmate me. 

Or do it randomly. Some games you play opposite, some you play side-by-side, and if you wanna get good you need to learn defence and offence for both.

Like it

I agree with turdmeister

I totally agree because there would be different strategies for each position.

Learn to pay and it wont end in 5 moves.  Your idea makes no sens

note:  when playing with a strong player,   actually listen to him instead of insisting on playing your own ideas,   and try to understand why he choses his moves.   And learn.  So many people not only do not understand anything about the game,  but play  like they think they haver a clue...

Team 4 chess is a difficult game,   and it's not going to be a fun game for weaker chess players.     Not untill the parings are more balanced.

Also its a very bad idea to match the strongest player with the weakest player.  It gives rise to very frustrating situations for both:  for the wek player who  doesnt liek to be told what to do,  and for the strong player who feels like he has to deal with a stubborn kid who doesnt understand anything....   

that was a nice idea. keep on playing, then study your mistake so it won't happened again. 4 player chess is easy to play but its hard to master.

This idea (R+G vs Y+B) is not new. It was suggested few times on this forum, for example on Oct 6, 2017:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/suggestion-team-play-mode-be-red-and-green-team-and-blue-and-gold

Personally I do not like this idea, because you can mate a player (or eat both queens of your opponents) easily in 2 consecutive moves. The teams variant is already very sharp. And it is going to become just crazy sharp and unpredictable if the teammates will be able to make 2 consecutive moves.

Just open a test board and "play" a few games: http://www.smartbridge6.nine.ch/.4pcp/

@BabYagun,

The "2 consecutive moves" point is 100% valid, but is also the *only* good reason I've seen to not make this change.  What if turn iteration (assuming red&green vs yellow&blue) went to red-yellow-green-blue?  I think the pattern of (from red's perspective), "Vertical players (bottom & top) move, then horizontal players (right & left) move.  Repeat" would be fairly easy to pick up on. Perhaps moreso with a tweak to color scheme described below.

As a tangential suggestion, what if team 4pc were color-schemed by corners?  So the red-green color would just be red pieces, and the yellow-blue corner would just be blue pieces.  They players within the same team would simply differentiate by shade (light-red&dark-red vs light-blue&dark-blue).

IMO, this would make the games far easier to play & watch.  Maybe it's just me, but wether watching or playing the game, I find myself dedicating a lot of "think" time to keeping straight which two teams are paired up... yes, it's a skill that gets easier with time, but still, it seems an unnecessary stumbling block to new players picking up the game.  Plus, the modified turn iteration becomes conceptually simpler: red team moves, then blue team moves; light shade goes before dark shade.

You are right, @kevinkirkpat. If they will make moves in this order (red -> yellow -> green -> blue) the game will be playable. Good idea. (But new players will spend more time to remember this moves order, definitely. It is more sophisticated than the current "clockwise order".)

On further reflection, I see one other downside. 

In both standard chess and FFA 4pc, there's a rough symmetry; the "average" direction of enemy threat is directly in front of each player.  For this reason, the centralization of both King and Queen, as well as symmetry of bishop, knight, and rook, makes good sense for initial positioning.  

However, in this proposed "shared corner" team variation, the "average" attack/defense vector is off-center, and the standard initial placement is nothing close to optimal.  The biggest flaw is King placement.  I suspect the opening game strategy would evolve into an utterly monotonous first 5-6 moves: for every player, in every game, castling to ones "allied corner" would become the #1 priority.  

This is very different from the "gain control of the center" in 2pc, or "king protection" in FFA 4pc... those are good guiding principles, but by no means necessary for success in any given game.  I suspect that having both kings safely in the allied corner (where individual pieces could easily serve to defend against attacks against either king) would give such a massive advantage that failing to do so right away would amount to a catastrophic blunder.

To that end, one final recommendation I'd give: start the kings in the shared corner, and come up with a strategically-meaningful initial arrangement of other pieces relative to that (I'll leave to better players than myself to suggest what that might be).

If there is a way to mate in four moves chess.com would have fixed it or this would be a useless variant there is not a guaranteed way to win in four moves I do like your 1st suggestion 

@finnwoods, there's no force 4-move mate, but it's an easy opening trap to fall into.

One downside to this idea is that it makes queening a couple pawns much easier, since your pawns on the side by your ally are marching through friendly territory all the way and only run into hostile opposition in the last 1-2 squares.  With the current game, you have 1-2 squares of friendly territory at the beginning and end of the promotion path, but otherwise it's hostile territory throughout - and you have to coordinate with your ally to avoid blocking each other.