Board and pieces

Four-player chess is played on an 8×8 board that’s extended by three rows of eight squares on each side. Quite simply, this can be a 14×14 board with the 3×3 corners removed. The board has 14 files, assigned the letters a-n, and 14 ranks, numbered 1-14. how to play 4 player chess is played with four regular sets of chess pieces, each of another colour. The colours used throughout this book are red, blue, yellow and green.

Players

The game is used four players, each with their own set of pieces. The players will hereafter be referred to as Red, Blue, Yellow and Green, corresponding to the color of their respective sets of pieces. Red is the first player and makes the first move. Therefore, the typical board orientation is from Red’s perspective, i.e. Red is shown in the bottom. The next player is Blue, who is seated on the left side of Red. Yellow is the third player and is seated across from Red. The final player is Green and is seated on the right side of Red, across from Blue. The game continues in clockwise order, i.e. Red, accompanied by Blue, accompanied by Yellow, accompanied by Green and Red again etc.

Initial position

Looking from each player’s perspective, the pieces are arranged the same way as in regular chess, with the exception that for Blue and Green the king and queen are swapped. That’s, the rooks go in the corners, the knights are placed next to the rooks and the bishops are put next to the knights. All kings are placed on light squares and all queens are placed on dark squares. The pawns are put while watching pieces. The board should be oriented such that the lower right square of the 8×8 central section of the board is a light square, when viewed from Red’s perspective, as being a regular 8×8 chess board. (If one would imagine a whole 14×14 board, the “n1” square on the bottom right ought to be a light square.)

With regards to files and ranks, Red’s pieces are put on the initial rank and the pawns on the second rank, Yellow’s pieces are put on the 14th rank and the pawns on the 13th rank, Blue’s pieces are placed on the a-file and the pawns on the b-file and Green’s pieces are placed on the n-file and the pawns on the m-file.

Rules

You can find two main variants of four-player chess: Free-For-All (FFA) and Teams. In the FFA variant each player plays on his own and in the Teams variant the players across from one another form a team. Pieces move exactly the same way as in regular chess and castling and en passant captures may also be the same.