Four Handed Chess

As early as 1793, a chess variant was designed and played, using a board with extensions at all four sides, to be played with four persons.

It is called 4 handed chess (sometimes called 4 way chess) and there have been quite a few minor variants of this game, over the years, varying in:

Here is the official version played by the

Four Handed Chess Club of San Antonio, Texas

We play every Tuesday and Friday Night, 8:00 PM at

Freedom Coffee House

located at 2407 N. Saint Mary's in San Antonio (210) 737-3363

American 4 Handed Chess

The board is played on an extended length chess board,
(the standard 8x8 board with four 8x3 extensions.)

The pieces consist of 2 chess sets, with the four colors (nominally) being White, Black, Brown (Chocolate), and Tan (Peanut Butter). White and Peanut Butter play as partners against Black and Chocolate. Partners sit across from each other. IT IS IMPERITAVE THAT ALL QUEENS ON BOTH TEAMS BEGIN IN THE WHITE SQUARE. In normal chess games, the queen always begins on her own color, but we have found through experience that this does not work out well in 4 handed chess. (This gives an extreme advantage in power and to the white team, making for a predictable, tedious and boring game).

The game is played in partners (much like bridge), and both players on a team must be mated in order for the game to end. As in bridge, partners are seated across the board from one another, facing each other, and talking across the table is not normally permitted. (We make exception for players first learning the game, as the purpose of the game is to have fun and to learn). Hence, white is across from peanut butter (who is white's partner), and black across from brown (who is black's partner). White and Peanut Butter play as a team to try to checkmate both opponents, Black and Brown. Black and Brown are also working as a team, trying to mate both White and Peanut Butter.

Play begins with White, and procedes in a clockwise direction after that.

If a player on one team is mated, his pieces are frozen until the mate is released by his partner. By frozen, I mean that all pieces have virtually "turned to stone" and may not be moved or taken until such time as the mate is broken. Frozen pieces also hold no power, as they can not move.

In the event that a mated player's partner is able to break the mate, that players pieces remain frozen (and untouchable) until it is that players turn to move. At which time, it is likely that the only move the "ex-mated" player has is to do whatever it takes to get out of check.

Game ends whenever

Pawns may advance to become queens (or any other desirable piece) by moving thier way over into the enimies back rank.


In order for this to happen, the pawn MUST capture a minimum of 3 pieces, up to a theoretically possible 9 pieces in order to get to the square of advancement. A queen is well earned by the pawn indeed!!! Should a pawn advance it's way all the way across the board, to the back row of it's partner, it reverses direction of travel. I have seen this once.

All other moves are exactly as they would be in normal chess. Beware of the trap of using standard chess strategy.... it doesn't quite work the same in this game, as things can happen much quicker than expected, and winning strategies in regular chess will be your undoing in 4 handed chess. One final note:

Stay out of Check

Stay out of Check

STAY OUT OF CHECK !!!

Any Questions may be addressed by CLICKING HERE to email me.
Or come on down to Freedom Coffee House and Play a game or two!!!
There are many other variants of the 4 handed chess game. We have studied most of them, and found the one that we play to be the most challenging and rewarding. However, in all fairness, we must also present some of the other versions, so you can experiment and see for yourself.

Below, we describe two such variants: a modern game, meant for individual play, and a team game, which was already more than one century ago very popular.

Four players chess

The following description was made by Daniel Loeb loeb@labri.u-bordeaux.fr. GenCon is the name of a gaming convention.

Daniel Loeb writes about this game:

I played this game at GenCon in 1983 (?) where it was a quite popular game being playtested. Since then I've been looking for it. I happened to come across "Foray" last summer, and thought this was what I was looking for given the box illustrations. Actually, Foray's rules (copyright 1986, Jack Quinn) are quite different (inferior, IMHO) but you can buy Foray and use these rules instead of those that come with the game.) Rules 1. Board is like this

Each player sets up normally in his 2x8 sections.

2. Squares such as C2,B3 are NOT considered diagonally adjacent.

3. Pawns move away from their starting sides and promote when they reach the opposite end. (e.g. white promotes on row 12 and A10, B10, K10, L10).

4. You must move out of check if possible (even if other player is in check). Move king, or eliminate "threat", or block.

5. If you can not move out of check, then you must PASS.

6. If you may not move, you must PASS.

7. If a player A takes player B's king. B loses. The 2x8 section of board belonging to B is removed. All pieces on it are removed. (if there are kings on it, other than A's, then they lose as well, and remove their 2x8 sections, and so on ...). Player A can replace any missing pieces in a starting square of his for such a piece. B's remaining pieces remain on the board as inert obstacles. They do not move, nor do they threaten check, but they may be captured.

8. En passant captures are possible by any of the 3 following players after a player advances a pawn 2 spaces. Thus, after

pC2-C4, pB3-D3, nB5-C3 ...

the move takes both pawns and the knight!

9. Play is clockwise. Last remaining player wins.

Four-handed chess: Hughes game

With small, but noticeable (and heavily play affecting) differences, a game like this was designed in 1784 by K. E. G. Dessau. One of the best known variants of this game is the one of G. H. Verney (1881). Verney founded the Four-Handed Chess Club of London; his game was simultaneously played in the United States, and several other parts of the world. In 1888, M. E. Hughes-Hughes proposed certain changes to Verney's rules, changes which were quickly widely accepted (also by Verney). The game below is this latter game. The description, made by Hans Bodlaender, was based on the description of the game in Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. More information on this and related games can be found in this book.

The board and opening setup

The board consists of an 8 by 8 board, with at all four sides an extension of size 8 by 3 added. The board is checkered, with a black square in the left-most corner(s). Each of the four players has a normal set of pieces, in four different colours, clockwise: black, yellow, red, white (drawn in different colors in the picture below).

Note that the queen is always on the left side of the king in the opening setup.

Other rules

Players, sitting opposite of each other are partners, i.e., white and yellow form a team, and black and red form a team.

Black starts, and players then make moves in clockwise order.

Pawns may advance two squares initially, as in normal chess. (This was one of the modifications of Hughes: Verney's game forbids an initial double step.)

Pawns promote only on the last ranks of the opponents, and only to queen. When a pawn reaches the last rank of his partners row (or one of the other four fields where the edge of the board obstructs its move), then it reverses direction, and moves further in the opposite direction. When it again would reach the last rank, it again reverses direction, etc. When a pawn's move is obstructed by a pawn of its partner, it can leap over it, provided the square it moves to is vacant. This is possible, even when both pawns move in the same direction. (Mark pawns going in the opposite direction to keep track which direction they are going.)

When a player is checkmated, he may not move, and he must pass his turns. His pieces remain on the board, and may not be captured. These pieces do not give check.

A mated player can be released from mate, either by his opponents, or (more commonly) by his partner. When a player releases an opponent from mate, he may not do this by capturing one of the pieces of the mated player.

The team that checkmates both opponents wins the game. All other outcomes (except of course when a team resigns) are a draw.

Political Chess

This is played like normal 4 player chess except that players are encourages to talk and form temporary alliances eg. to take another players queen, or to mate another player. These alliances are then disolved when the goal is acomplised, (or before if a player decides to do double-cross someone). This game is very enjoyable as long as everyone joins in the spririt of the game. A thing to avoid is forming an alliance of 3 against 1 unless mating this last person is a few moves away, as this can be very frustrating for the person on his own.

Warning, chess can be hazardous to your health. There was one case where a person's head exploded while playing a master chess tournament.

Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis

(From the Weekly World News, May 24, 1994)
MOSCOW - Doctors are blaming a rare electrical imbalance in the brain for the bizarre death of a chess player whose head literally exploded in the middle of a championship game!

No one else was hurt in the fatal explosion but four players and three officials at the Moscow Candidate Masters' Chess Championships were sprayed with blood and brain matter when Nikolai Titov's head suddenly blew apart. Experts say he suffered from a condition called Hyper-Cerebral Electrosis or HCE.

"He was deep in concentration with his eyes focused on the board," says Titov's opponent, Vladimir Dobrynin. "All of a sudden his hands flew to hi temples and he screamed in pain. Everyone looked up from their games, startled by the noise. Then, as if someone had put a bomb in his cranium, his head popped like a firecracker."

Incredibly, Titiov's is not the first case in which a person's head has spontaneously exploded. Five people are known to have died of HCE in the last 25 years. The most recent death occurred just three years ago in 1991, when European psychic Barbara Nicole's skull burst. Miss Nicole's story was reported by newspapers worldwide, including WWN. "HCE is an extremely rare physical imbalance," said Dr. Anatoly Martinenko, famed neurologist and expert on the human brain who did the autopsy on the brilliant chess expert. "It is a condition in which the circuits of the brain become overloaded by the body' own electricity. The explosions happen during periods of intense menta activity when lots of current is surging through the brain.

Victims are highly intelligent people with great powers of concentration. Both Miss Nicole and Mr. Titov were intense people who tended to keep those cerebral circuits overloaded. In a way it could be said they were literall too smart for their own good."

Although Dr. Martinenko says there are probably many undiagnosed cases, h hastens to add that very few people will die from HCE. "Most people who have it will never know. At this point, medical science still doesn't know much about HCE. And since fatalities are so rare it will probably be years before research money becomes available."

In the meantime, the doctor urges people to take it easy and not think too hard for long periods of time. "Take frequent relaxation breaks when you're doing things that take lots of mental focus," he recommends.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR HEAD'S ABOUT TO BLOW UP:

Although HCE is very rare, it can kill. Dr. Martinenko says knowing you have the condition can greatly improve your odds of surviving it. A "yes" answer to any three of the following seven questions could mean that you have HCE

  1. Does your head sometimes ache when you think too hard?
    (Head pain can indicate overloaded brain circuits.)
  2. Do you ever hear a faint ringing or humming sound in your ears?
    (It could be the sound of electricity in the skull cavity.)
  3. Do you sometimes find yourself unable to get a thought out of your head?
    (This is a possible sign of too much electrical activity in the cerebral cortex.)
  4. Do you spend more than five hours a day reading, balancing your checkbook, or other thoughtful activity?
    (A common symptom of HCE is a tendency to over-use the brain.
  5. When you get angry or frustrated do you feel pressure in your temples?
    (Friends of people who died of HCE say the victims often complained of head pressure in times of strong emotion.)
  6. Do you ever overeat on ice cream, doughnuts and other sweets?
    (A craving for sugar is typical of people with too much electrical pressure in the cranium.)
  7. Do you tend to analyze yourself too much?
    (HCE sufferers are often introspective, "over-thinking" their lives.)

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