Your best friend, backstabber and worst enemy

Hey guys, 
A nice conversation was going on. Hope to get it back.

I'm a 1500-1600 player and I believe that You should support your 'friend' player's attack in the free-for-all games. I have played a lot of matches and have came to an understanding that if you don't take any advantage of your 'friend' player and attack those who attack him (by protecting his ass a few times) you both are for sure be on the top 2 and get those +points at the end of the game. 
- usually, the other two players start to go for a pawn promotion and then engage in trading or taking pieces to get that Queen. 
- I have spotted a trend - if in an early stage of the game the two players that are sitting in the opposite side of the table are going for queens, they don 't take each other, come back home and  then 2 things can happen:
1) they go for center control and slowly trade-off  pieces if necessary and do whatever they can to stop others from promotion;

2) they team up in some kind and start to cut others off one by one. 

Although this is a free for all game, there is a certain team play until one of the opposite players feel that it is the time to attack and go on his own  - usually, that happens when only 3 players have left.

- All my idea of playing and strategy usually is to not become the one in the middle who is being attacked from both sides. 

- Castling in the early stage of the game hasn't been working for me or my opponents, because then everyone understands where to attack and can predict the player's strategy. 

Yeah, nice conversation here. 

I have 1500 - 1550 rating and I can say: Controlling the flanks with 2 bishops in fiancetto position, and not opening the Queen and King pawns help a lot. 

There comes always an opportunity to attack in one of those 4 diagonal lines. It gives protection to the pawns and the Knights. I like it when I see 2 Bishops watching out the whole board, like 2 lions guarding a city port.

4 player chess is very exciting if you consider it like politics and war. The principles of Sun Tzu in his book 'The Art of War' are practicable in this game. 

Psychological aspects play a big role and it is recommended to be not too aggressive or too passive. Stay in the conflict bit by bit, and watch for the (potential) free pieces. When a  possible checkmate is available always be there. To attack your left and right enemy or to protect your 'friend'. 

When your 'friend' has been checkmated, stimulate the enemies to attack each other frontally (mostly by Queen and rooks) 

Try to keep the bishops till the end. 

Create a balance of attacking so both enemies wouldn't hate you. 

Most important thing, have fun, be gentile to other players and never give up. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPJHy9AFqE

I think what Martin0 mentioned on his first post makes total sense but with well-ranked players (more than 1300). Because players with rating lower than that, usually make silly mistakes affecting others. 

I wholly agree with Martin0's original post.    It's very well put.  Things do change quite drastically once a player is eliminated though.  

I think this is basically right and all these [language - MOD] psychological dynamics, triangulation of opponents are why 4 player chess FFA will never become big and be taken seriously at top levels. 

The big reason it will never become big is that due to the 4-player interaction, you might be the strongest player and still get piled on by everyone else and so lose.  It's not intended to be serious; it's fun for messing around and you can become reasonably good at it, but that's all it's intended to be.

The team version has more potential that way.

Cool way of thinking about it!

That's very true. I often consider the player opposite me as my ally and the person on my left as an enemy while I'm the player the person on the right considers as their enemy. The left player as enemy has to do with their advantage of taking your piece while the other two players have a chance at attacking you and if they do, you'd not be able to counter the left player. The opposite player is an ally because they're the furthest from you, thus have lesser opportunities to get you.

i noticed after only 5 games of experience that you normally don't want to make any mating attacks on an opponent and i do so by making sure my pieces cannot assist another opponent's queen and that my queen cannot be assisted by another opponent's piece. i have had experiences where i could be checkmated in less than one move but still didn't because the potential attackers knew if they attacked, the other attacker would win my king for their queen and have enough points to win later on. 

A lot of times when my worst enemy makes a Queen "touching"check and my backstabber helps by protecting my worst enemy's Queen and I am mated. https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=1508878-0

In this game I backstabbed, no, checkmated my best friend with my enemies!!!https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=1763235-0

the player to your right and left are both your worst enemies. tactics involving turn order appear all the time in middle game. the player to your left can threaten a piece or give check where the across and right players can take free points while u have to deal with threat. the right player can make threats or capture your pieces if left or across player is making threats. the across player can do both but is too far away to do so in opening and early middle. 

it is true to treat all opponents like enemies but not treat them equally because most tactics in 4pc rely on turn order. the player to your left can make a threat and the other opponents can make their own threats while u can only deal with one. the player to your right is most of the time the player to take advantage of u if you are threatened. the player across from you is your least bad enemy because u can take advantage of their threats to the left player and they will take advantage of your threats to your right opponent. 

also if the player in front of you dies, you end up being stucked between two opponents so thats one more reason to not let him die

Lot of time that happens

makes sense

When I mate my worst enemy I usually try to take advantage of my backstabber's threats on my friend.

What do you mean?!

For example I am red, I mated Blue, and I will attack Yellow because if Yellow trade with me(NOT I traded with Yellow!) Green will take advantage. I can't attack Green because I'm his worst enemy and not that he will only defend me, but also attack Yellow as Green is Yellow's worst enemy. As Green is attacking Yellow it will be much easier if I attack Yellow rather than to attack Green. If I attack Green he will pull his attacking pieces into defence and Yellow will stay neutral and take advantage (In this case Red and Green are worst enemies to eachother and to Yellow and Yellow is the backstabber.) of whoever that is losing and if Yellow mates Green I've to beat Yellow to win but if I attack Yellow and Green mates Yellow he will probably lose a lot of pieces but Yellow can't defend 2 attackers at once.

Oh yes!