How to Play 4 Player Chess (Teams)

A complete beginner's guide — the rules, the ideas, and the habits, written for someone who knows regular chess and nothing else. Companion to the Maswabe Arena and the Maswabe Openings Book.

1. The board and the four armies

The board is a 14×14 cross — a normal-looking middle with four 3×3 corners missing. Four complete chess armies sit on the four sides:

• Red sits at the bottom, Blue on the left, Yellow on top, Green on the right.
• Turns go clockwise, always: Red → Blue → Yellow → Green → Red again.
• Every army is a full chess set: 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, a queen and a king, on its own two home ranks.

2. Teams — you and the player across from you

You win or lose together. There are three ways a game ends:

1. Checkmate. The moment either king on a team is checkmated, that whole team loses — instantly. It doesn't matter if the partner was completely winning on the other side of the board.
2. King capture. If someone leaves their king where it can actually be taken (it happens — see section 5), taking it wins on the spot.
3. Time. Each player has their own clock; a flag loses for the team.

Stalemate and endless repetition are draws, but real 4PC games almost never draw — someone always gets mated first.

3. The turn order is a weapon

Look at the wheel again: between your move and your partner's move, an enemy always gets to move. This one fact drives most 4PC strategy.

4. How the pieces move

Exactly like chess. Rooks, knights, bishops, queens and kings move identically. The details that differ:

5. Check, checkmate, and the capturable king

• You can be checked by either enemy army, and you may never move into check from anyone.
• Blocking, capturing the checker, or moving the king all work as in chess — and note: your partner's pieces can't block for you, but the check must simply be legal to escape on your move.
• Here's the strange one. In chess, a discovered attack on a king can't really happen "off-turn." In 4PC it can: Blue moves a piece and accidentally opens a line from Red's rook to Green's king — and Green isn't the next player to move. If a king is standing attacked when your turn starts, you may simply capture it and win.

6. What the pieces are worth here

The huge board changes the economy. These are the values our engine learned from millions of games, rounded for humans (in "pawns"):

Trade rules that follow: two minor pieces beat a rook; don't dump a minor piece for two or three early pawns; and treat your queen like a second king — she is your mating weapon and her loss usually decides which enemy king can never be attacked again.

7. Ten principles for your first hundred games

1. Castle early, keep pawn cover, leave your king an escape square. There are two enemy queens in this game. The single most common way strong players lose is both enemy armies converging on one king that kept no "luft."
2. Watch all four kings every turn. Yours, your partner's, and both enemies'. The game ends at any one of them.
3. Aim threats at the slow enemy (the one who moves right before you). He eats two of your team's moves before he can answer — the golden tempo rule.
4. Attack one enemy with both armies. A coordinated two-army attack on a single king is nearly unstoppable — one army defending alone against two is nearly hopeless. Pick the weaker enemy king and both of you lean on it.
5. Don't material-grab while your partner is under attack. The saddest loss in 4PC: you're up a rook on your side while your partner gets mated on his. His mate is YOUR loss. When his king is in danger, create counter-threats or send pieces his way — your pieces defend his just fine.
6. Develop toward the middle, but respect the long lines. Central pieces hit both enemies; but every line you open is a line someone can use back. Quiet, safe developing moves (our book's main line starts with a humble pawn step that frees the queen's diagonal) beat grabby ones.
7. Don't ignore the far enemy. Beginners fixate on the enemy next to them. The one across from him is attacking your partner right now — half the board's action is happening away from you. Look.
8. Knights toward the center, bishops on long diagonals. A knight on the rim of a 14×14 board is barely a piece. A bishop lasered across the whole cross is a sniper.
9. Advanced pawns are gold. Promotion is far away, but a pawn past the middle grows in value with every step — the engines push them hard, and so should you.
10. First mate wins — you don't have to be "winning." Material count matters far less than in chess. A cornered king with both your armies nearby beats being up fifteen points of material. When the attack is there, take it.

8. Your first opening: The Keyhole

Our engine-verified openings book names its main line The Keyhole: Red's first move is the quiet pawn step h2–h3, unlocking the g1-queen's long diagonal without weakening anything. The symmetric version, where all four players make the same shape (h3 / c7 / g12 / l8), is called The Four Courts — safe, sound, and verified to lose nothing for anyone.

You don't need to memorize more than that to start. When you're ready for real lines, the arena's Trainer teaches the whole book interactively — see below.

9. How to actually learn (the arena path)

1. Trainer → Learn — you play all four seats of a book line with arrows guiding you. This teaches the flow of the four armies, which IS the theory.
2. Puzzles (Rated) — one-move tactics served at your level. They start easy and climb with you; your puzzle rating tracks your progress.
3. Play the bots — start at Bot 800 and climb. Every finished game counts on your Ladder rating, so wins mean something.
4. Review your games — the arena grades every move like a coach. Look at your two or three worst moves per game; that's where the next 100 rating points live.
5. Trainer → Punish — once you know some theory, opponents deviate onto refuted moves and you must prove why they're wrong. This is the skill that converts knowledge into wins.

Maswabe Arena — rules per chess.com 4 Player Chess (Teams). Companion reading: the Maswabe Openings Book.