Aliya Explains Chess Variants: Free-for-All Variant - Four Player Chess

In Free-for-All Chess, teaming is NOT ALLOWED! That means you are not allowed to communicate, team up, or make alliances with any other players.

BY ALIYA SALDANHA-SURI
Bronx High School of Science
COACH AND COLUMNIST

Image of Four Player Chess courtesy of Wikipedia.

Free-for-All Chess, a Four Player Chess variant, is the tenth of fifteen variants in our special article series focusing on other chess playing games. Chess variants are one of the most enjoyable parts of chess. Whether you’re goofing off with your friends, playing by yourself on a computer, or even competing in a chess variant tournament. Chess variants offer many different ways to have fun playing chess and improve in different aspects of the game.

Courtesy of Triple S Games.

Four Player Chess

Free-for-All Variant: Like in Four Player Chess, there are four colors of pieces and 160 squares on the board. It may be hard to find this chess variant over the board because of its unusually shaped chess board, but it is often played online because it’s just like regular chess, except you can have fun with more of your friends! There are many different variations to this game, so it is possible that the rules listed here will not be exactly the same as those in the Free-for-Chess game that you play.

How to win the game: The goal of free-for-all is to end up with the most points out of your four opponents determined when there is only one player remaining (this is usually the goal of the game, though often players will also play to be the last one standing).

Point values:

  • Capturing a pawn/promoted pawn - 1 point

  • Capturing a knight - 3 points

  • Capturing a bishop - 5 points

  • Capturing a rook - 5 points

  • Capturing a queen - 9 points

  • Capturing a king - 20 points (you are allowed to capture kings)

  • Checkmate - 20 points

  • Stalemating an opponent - 10 points to all players remaining

  • Stalemating yourself - 20 points

  • Checking two kings in the same move - 5 points

  • Checking three kings in the same move - 15 points

Rules for Four Player Chess General Variant: Teaming is NOT ALLOWED. That means you are not allowed to communicate, team up, or make alliances with any other players. When a player loses, their pieces remain on the board and cannot move. They also cannot deliver checks or checkmate. Those pieces can be captured but do not give any points.

Specific rules:

  • Pawns promote when they reach their player’s eighth rank

Four Player Chess courtesy of Amazon.com

VariantsHer Move Nextvariants, Four Player Chess, Free-for-All