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June 8th, 2020 New organization of Leaderboards. FFA Rapid has been separated from FFA Blitz. Solo&FFA merged for Variants and Antichess May 20th, 2020 Blocking is no longer respected for Variant games (except teammates in teams games). The player pool for such games is too small, which leads to "discrimination" issues. (For example, some players block all strong opposition, effectively preventing the blocked players from getting a game started.) May 19th, 2020 Recent changes New Hyperbullet rating and leaderboard. This rating type covers any game with a hyper time control, eg the same rating is used regardless of the game being Solo, FFA or Teams, Antichess or other Variant. New Settings, customizable square and wall colors. Upcoming tournaments (click the Arena icon in the Play tab), are now filtered (by selected modes and time controls) Rounded corners    including rounded corners for transparent walls (for 8x8 board etc) New category filter for listed variants (click the List icon in the Play Tab). Diplomacy games are now casual only 1- and 2-check are disabled for standard teams games (solved win for R&Y). Does not apply to custom starting positions Checked kings are no longer highlighted in the "Capture the King" variant. Update April 2nd, 2020 TournamentsCheck the Play Tab for ongoing and upcoming tournaments. You can also see ongoing and recent tournaments in Leaderboards->Tournaments New design for games and tournamentsMany thanks to @GDII for the new styles and tournament calculations!. New Page Layout with the main tabs having the full window height unless a game is opened. (non-premiums) Client performance tuning- Faster painting of positions on the board- Move and other animations use native CSS transitions (was JQuery)- Initial page load optimizations (speed, direct access to game in url)- Other client optimizations This should help a lot for users on slower computers and mobile phones. Players with a partner are excluded from blocking checks. You may face players you block as opponents in teams games (but never as your teammate). Symmetric editing: In Edit Position, the option (under the board) allows creating and editing symmetrical positions quickly (edits are reflected for all players). Fairy Pieces4PC now supports 21 different Fairy Pieces. Check the Edit Position tab.Sample game: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=3044931-0Remember you can Shift-Click on any piece at any time to see its legal moves!. Any piece can be declared the Royal one, it need not be the king. Non-king royals are highlighted, as are royal kings when spare kings are present on the board. (Edit position -> More options -> Royal Piece (type in coordinates. "h2" ). Use keyboard shortcut 'K' to toggle the coordinate helper (mouse over squares), or 'L' to toggle the coordinates. Update Jan 28th Adjustments to ffa rating calc for large span games (like 2500 vs 2700 vs 1800 vs 1700, where the winner was gaining too much or not enough) Support custom pawn base rank (from which pawns can jump 2 squares. They can also jump from the rank right behind it (for horde/war for throne type positions). Support castling in a standard 2-player chess setup.  This setup combined with pawn base =5 11th=any, +play4mate is then regular chess, for which there is a new button in the Edit Position tab.4pc now offers new possibilities for regular chess variants, such as King of the Hill + 3check combined, antichess + KotHill combined, etc You can create 3- and 2-Player games where one or two 'players' are zombies from the start. Zombie armies are controlled by a modified comfuter:   - Rando: make random moves.  - Ranter: on each move,  50% chance of playing either a random or a comfuter move  - Comfuter: regular comfuter  - Patzer: will play the worst comfuter move  - Pusher: Pushers are Comfuters that will always push pawns if possible.  - Checker: Checkers are Comfuters that will always check if possible.  - Muncher: Munchers are Comfuters that will always capture.All zombies do not like to capture pieces of other zombies (except randos/ranters)In addition, you can set zombies to be immune, meaning their pieces cannot be captured. These are like moving walls, very powerful pieces! Update 16 January, 2020 Switched to a simple and fast connection library, 4pc now handles sockets/rooms/observers itself. Hopefully connections will be more reliable and faster. You can now open 4pc in multiple tabs/windows. Shift- or Ctrl/Cmd- click on games (in the watch/archive list, or on 'Playing/Observing' in a player-popup or friends list) to open them in a new tab. Rules changes: FFA: 2nd place always gains, 3rd always loses rating. 2nd place used to be 2 wins and 1 loss vs average, now it’s X wins vs average (and no losses). The higher the average rating of the game, the smaller the rating changes for 2nd and 3rd place will be.This is an attempt to discourage teaming from A-Z in high level FFA. Doublechecks by Queens are worth +1 point only. otherwise +5. Triplechecks by Queens are worth 5 points, otherwise +20. FFA/Solo: King captures take priority over checks or pins by the player whose king can be captured. After Green moves the Knight, Red can capture the Blue king (as long as Red is not in check by another player as well). Similarly if the red bishop were pinned by a blue piece, it would be allowed to capture the king. Solo: Autoresign: If there are only two players left, and one of them cannot win (there aren’t enough points left to be made to reach 1st), the he is forced to resign. This prevents “king making” (deciding the winner) by a player who cannot win himself. More changes: New Game Modes:The quest for fun modes continues, especially for an FFA that not be so teamy. “+3” was inspired by Hest1805: checkmates/kings are worth 3 points (rather than 20). Resigned kings will sit still (no DeadKingWalking, as in the old days). "Takeover" (FFA/Solo)When you checkmate a player, his pieces (but not pawns) join your army! If a player resigns, their pieces remain live (worth points, but don’t move) and can still be taken over by checkmating their wandering king.“Play-4-Mate” is a game where only checkmates matter. No points for pieces! And: the first to deliver a checkmate will win the game (+60 points), but further checkmates matter (+30 and +15 points for 2nd/3rd checkmate), a total of 105 points each game, and rating changes will correspond to how many points a player made. 105-0-0-0 is much like a solo win, 60–30-15-0 much like FFA. Back to 1|15D default for Solo, time control settings no longer saved separately for solo/ffa/teams. Support for 2- and 3-Player games: You can create 2- or 3-player games by creating a custom starting position where one or two players are dead. Thus these games can only be played casual, unless admins decide to list such games. The rating system now supports 2 and 3player games. They count as variants. Team-engines:@Tony and @omatamix have each developed a 4-Player Teams engine, and can invite players to play against their bots: @TeamTerminator1&2 and @PhoenixZero1&2. Games may be rated as long as the same engine plays both sides of a team. Faster updating of online friends, up to 200 friends checked. Fixed: - Solo rating deflation.- Solo-antichess games ending when resigned army stalemates.- Discovered checks counting double in N-check Games. ..plus tons of fixes, improvements, and new features.. Update 8 October +300 rating points have been added to all 4 Player Chess ratings. New players start from 1500. Rapid and Blitz ratings have been merged. You have kept your rapid ratings unless your corresponding blitz rating was higher. The New-Game dialog shows Solo alongside FFA and Teams to all players that have played at least 25 rated FFA games (or at least one rated Solo game). The default time control for Solo is 1|5 (1 minute, 5 second increment).(Solo is Free-for-All, but only the winner gains rating, 2nd-4th lose equally.) Updated leaderboad requirements: 3 games played in the last 2 weeks. For Leaderboard champions: Standard leaderboards count double, point chase and most games played no longer count. Rule Changes: If the last man standing does not have sufficient mating material (eg, lone K, K+N or K+B), the points will be shared (+10 for both rather than +20 for the last man standing). Points for other remaining resigned kings will still be awarded to the last man standing.
 For some variants such as N-Check, King of the Hill, Capture the King or DeadWall, sufficient mating material is defined differently. In case of 3-fold repetition, 50-move rule or insufficient material, points for remaining resigned kings will be shared (in addition to the +10) Solo-Antichess: The game will end as soon as the first player stalemates (as 2nd-4th doesn't matter in Solo). Adjusted abort timer: 10s for 1/2|0 games, 20s for 1|0 or similar. Other notable changes: Slight changes in definitions of bullet/blitz/rapid: 3|0 is now bullet, 2|2D and 1|4D are blitz, 3|5, 4|4 and 5|3 are rapid. LAG compensation: the time it takes to receive the last move and send a new move back to the server is added back to the player’s clock. It should now be possible to premove several moves per second regardless of your connection speed (ping). Fixed "Zombie effect": Players that had resigned kings to their right lost a lot of time on their clocks Improved premove implementation You can set a custom color for premove highlighting in the settings. Antichess: opposite color bishop endings end the game (insufficient material) Analysis board: 3-fold repetition is now detected in variations Invite partner button in bottom left corner after closing game-over window (and for archive games) If you click on ‘Playing’ in a player-popup or the friends tab, the board will be rotated to that player when the game loads. Same for ’Observing’ if the player played in the game. Comfuters will move more quickly (3s max) You cannot add or remove antichess rules from listed custom games. (You can, but you can't keep it rated) Material balance for teams games now supports promotions and imbalanced custom positions. Queens are counted as 10 (and bishops as 4). Nicer tooltips Custom time control settings are saved by game mode (Solo, FFA, Teams). You can create casual Solo games now. Send message from player-popup opens dialog rather than a new window Open Chesscom-Chat from player-popup (except while playing rated FFA or Solo) Update 15 July Rule Change:• New FFA resignation mechanics: upon resignation or timeout, before the pieces turn grey, the king will try to make a (random) move. If he can't move, he will sit still. (So, a resigned king won't be stalemated right after a resignation. And he won't capture his own pieces to escape on that move. But on the next move he can capture grey pieces to escape, as it was earlier.) Other notable changes: • Fixed Teams rating range bug when accepting invites.• Added Teams invite restrictions to prevent sandbagging abuse.• In N-Check games, lives are now taken into account when checking for 3-fold repetition.• Typing "33.", "24.b" or "move 29" in chat will create a link to that move, just like "#123456" will create a link to game 123456.   Update 21 May Rule Changes: 4-player chess now supports En Passsant. Free-for-all: Resigned kings will move at random until check- or stalemated. See https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/4pc-variant-dead-king-walking   New Features: New queue and matchmaking: The Play Tab shows all queues. Players can join up to three queues simultaneously, and will play the first one that fills up. Before you join a queue, make sure you read and understand the rules! (see List of variants) Also pay attention if a game is rated or casual. As soon as 4 players join a game, it will start (and the 4 players leave other queues they joined). The number in the top left corner shows how many different players have joined at least one game (and will drop by 4 each time a game starts). The list is sorted by number of players joined, so games will rise up as players join. Games you joined will always be at the top of the list. Players can create queues for any kind of game using the new play settings. (New Game -> Settings icon) Players can host casual games (New-Game->Settings->make casual->Host). Hosting means you can invite players to your game (this is not a teammate invite), keep it private, and/or arrange the seating. if public, your username will show with your game in play tab.Players can also invite Comfuters and RandoBots to hosted games. (Admins can host rated games also). New rating types and leaderboards for different time controls and variants. See https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/leaderboards-2 for leaderboard requirements. It's now possible to toggle the main tabs without exiting the room. Click on 'Bots' in the Play Tab to play casual games with a mix of Comfuters, RandoBots and fellow humans. Matchmaking supports blocking. Block/unblock via player-popup, also friend and follow. When you join a queue (or accept a team invite), you may get a message that your are blocking, or blocked by, players in that queue, and the game will disappear from the play tab. In case you joined via new-game->play, you will automatically be put in a new queue if joining an existing one got blocked.- You can't invite players you block or players that blocked you. (you can now close aka ignore invites)- Blocking currently has no effect on chat or anything else in the 4pc app.- If you are blocking (but not blocked by) players upon joining a queue, you are shown the username of the player(s) you blocked (so you can consider unblocking). If you invite a teammate via the player-popup, your play-settings determine the kind of game the invite is for. same for inviting from the new game window. If you invite your teammate via the game-over window, the invite will be for the kind of game just played. You can invite to any teams queue on the list (with <3 players). Added 2 new piece themes, 'Classic' and 'Alpha', see settings. Added setting "Pieces face center" (rotated pieces) Added setting for anonymous spectating. Obscures your username in spectator lists (unless you participated in chat). Your player popup will not reveal you are observing, the friends tab however will, to your friends only. Spectators are not anonymous to admins/staff. Added setting to enable keybaord shortcuts. Arrow keys, "," (start) "." (end) backspace (takeback) and space (play comfuter move) are enabled regardless. Added custom color settings. Note the application uses the terms "Red" "Blue" etc, so it is advisable to stick to similar colors. Not all colors will work well on all backgrounds.. adjusting panel transparency can help.. New replay/pause button to autoplay games New Diplomacy Variant (inspired by @VAOhlmann) https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/four-player-diplomacy-variant   Fixes and Improvements: Solo = Solo Play = Solo Mode is a new name for WTA (Winner Takes All). It is FFA games with 1 winner only. (In usual FFA games there are 1 major winner and 1 minor winner.) tons of small improvements and fixes. DKW "2.0": resigned kings will insta-move (not only on next turn). This introcudes new moves such as Kh1-h2T (timed out and moved to h2), RS (resigned into stalemate, points will be shared), R# (resigned into checkmate, points given to player(s) that are checking (couldn't find a scenario where two players checking was not already mate before resigns, but in case it's possible, points will be shared between the checking players). Lots of en passant fixes, including support for capturing two pieces in one move and other oddities (double stalemate in antichess for example, or detection of pins and discoverd checks) Anonymous games: players will remain anonymous in chat and spectator list after being eliminated (until the game ends), with the following limitations: The player popup (archive, leaderboards, friends..) will reveal you are observing. If you enable anonymous spectator setting, only friends will be able to detect you are observing. Move list expanding beyond window height 4pc width adjusts when clicking the collapse icon in the left chesscom navbar   Update 22 January Autoclaim will no longer happen when the remainig opponent is in 2nd place. As before, autoclaim only happens when claiming does not change the standings.See https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/claim-win-and-autoclaim for details on autoclaim. Fixed Antichess bugs related to en passant and 960 castling Fixed “Casual” showing for old games  Initial rating deviation lowered from 200 to 160 "?" behind rating means deviation > 100 (was >120)  Allow setting 960 position number for casual games Improved report-administration (for admins)       Update 13 January 2019: Removed daily/weekly Leaderboard (suspected of causing frequent player disconnects every 10 minutes during leaderboard recalc).   Update 5 January 2019: Added support for "Rated WTA3.0". This means the winner gets 3 wins, 2nd 1win and 1 loss, 3rd 1 loss, and 4th 2 losses (so contrary to regular WTA, 2nd and 3rd are not equal). We will add such games to the list, please try them and let us know how you like it (compared to regular WTA). Fixed arrow/chat bug for alternative teammates Fixed topgames sorting Fixed antichess enpassant (capturing en passant is now compulsory) There is a 'relaod game' link when it's your turn (below the board). This is in case the move you played didnt get registered, which unfortunately occasionally happens. This is much faster than reloading the window) Added setting "Optimize for live-streaming" which prevents the window title from changing (it was reported this causes problems with certain streaming software). It also hides admin-function in the player-popup (for streaming admins/staff)   Update 17 December 2018: Now there is only 1 winner in Top FFA games. If all 4 players in a FFA game are rated 1550+ the game is in WTA mode (Winner Takes All). There is 1 winner only. Any player (including free accounts) can create custom games now. Daily and Weekly FFA Leaderboards. The scores depend on points earned in FFA games. New FFA chat rules. No move suggestions. No begging for points. We have a lot of new chess variants now. Take a look at https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/4pc-variants-list FFA rating is calculated against an average opponent now. (More detailed description coming soon ...) There is an additional palette for colorblind. Block lists are respected for Teams games (except custom games). Autoclaim (Auto Claim Win): Wins will be claimed automatically, but only if the claim does not change the current standings. There is no autoclaim in casual (unrated) games. Enable Premove in settings. (Note: the premove will be played only after the animation of the last move has finished. You can change animation speed in the settings.) Browser History. Use the browser back button to get back to recently visited games or archive searches. You can bookmark games and simple archive searches. Up to 100 friends are checked for online/playing status. (previously 20) There are lots of UI improvements, including material balance in Teams.     Fixed: Chat won't scroll down automatically if you scrolled up to read. participants of the game will no longer accidentally be joined as a "spectator that can play". Instead they will be reconnected to the game correctly. the game start animation time (~3.5s) is no longer deducted from Red's clock   Enjoy!

Hey Everyone,Thank you all once again for participating and watching the World 4 Player Chess Championships (W4PCC)! Chess.com will be hosting the second Modern Solo/FFA W4PCC commencing Wednesday, March 19, 2025. Schedule of the 2025 Modern FFA W4PCC: March 19 00:00 UTC: The top 12 from FFA rapid leaderboard are selected as the first 12 candidates. Those candidates will qualify for Round 2 and play in any of the March 30 time slots (0:00, 12:00, 16:00, or 20:00 UTC) on a first come first serve basis. Only the top 3 will be guaranteed their first choice. Players on the leaderboard will be messaged and expected to reply prior to March 20 00:00 UTC with their preferences of times they would like to compete on March 29, in order. Replacements will be #13-20 in order from that leaderboard, and then the highest rated player following* the Tournament Director (TD) or referee in charge. March 22-23 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 8x 3-hour 1+5 Rapid 2400+ qualifier arenas, top 2 each arena qualify. Games will be rated and anonymous. Players that fall below 2400 Rapid during the Arena can still complete the arena. While the arenas are 1+5 (normally a blitz time control), they are treated as Rapid Ratings for these arenas. Arena scoring will be 3-1-1-0. Streak bonuses will be removed. March 29 (Round 1) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 16 players that qualified from the arenas (or substitutes thereof) will battle to 4 in first-to-1.25. 4 on March 29 00:00 UTC, 4 on March 29 12:00 UTC, 4 on March 29 16:00 UTC, and 4 on March 29, 20:00 UTC. Replacements will be #3 through last place from the arena the no-show player qualified from, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7. March 30 (Round 2) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: The 4 that advance (1 per time slot) will join the 12 leaderboard candidates (3 each time slot) in a first-to-1.25. Replacements from the leaderboard were discussed above, but replacements from March 29 will be in order from #2-4 from that time slot, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7. April 5-6 (Finals) 18:00 UTC: The final four will play for the Championship in a best-of-9 (first-to-2.25) with a maximum of 5 games per day. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7.See the following diagrams to hopefully clear up confusion: For all games, pawns promote on the 8th to a 1-point queen, and the en passant and dead king walk modes will be enabled. *following is defined as in the same spectator/game chat as the TD/referee on duty at the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. Players may be disqualified and replaced upon failure to arrive before the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. To find the spectator/game chat that the TD (fourplayerchess) or referee is in, please click their profile in the Variants Server (either through the Archive or friends list) and then click "Observing". Prize Money Disclaimer: Currently pending is a funding of $1000 from chess.com for the 2025 Modern FFA World Champion. Please understand this may take days, weeks, or a month or two to process. The tournament director may refer questions regarding prize money to staff/support. Only one player will be awarded prize money, and that player must agree to use the email directly linked to his/her chess.com account to find the link to the Prize Money when Awarded. Please note that the link may appear in your junk/trash/spam folder, so be sure to check those soon after you win the Championship! A detailed handbook may be organized and updated for this championship; however, as this is currently categorized as a 2025 Event, rules and eligibility may be superseded by the 2025 Event Rulebook ( https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-event-rulebook ), the Competitive Events Policy ( https://www.chess.com/legal/events ), the Fair Play Policy ( https://www.chess.com/legal/fair-play ), or other chess.com community guidelines, each on a case-by-case basis, and Staff/Support may have final authority of a player's eligibility! The previous FFA championship appeared to have positive feedback; however, the upcoming championship is subject to some possible changes and minor modifications. Discussion feedback may be taken into consideration but is not guaranteed. Staff and Variants Admins may be referees.Some additional rules to be more clear: Etiquette Rules1a.- Please do not resign at the start of the game because of your color or who you think your opposite is. 1b.- (Prelims + Finals) You are encouraged to abort the game if you see an incorrect ruleset, and you will not be penalized. 2.- Do not stall. Waiting 5 minutes before flagging or claiming win benefits nobody and does not make you look cool either. 5b.- Do not refresh your page multiple times to make the messages “[player color] disconnected” and “[player color] reconnected” spam the chat. 6.- You are allowed to spam arrows and use them appropriately as you please to help you play, but please do not spell out inappropriate words or symbols using arrows. 7.- (Prelims + Finals) Please state in chat if you will need a break (up to 5 minutes max ideally) in-between Game 1 and Game 2 in a round. Do not keep everyone waiting or go offline. 8.- Please do not enable blindfold to taunt your opponents or to reveal your identity. 9.- Do not prearrange/match-fix. Report any prearranged teaming/match-fixing. Upon becoming aware that a player communicates that he is planning to throw to make you win, please report this behavior to the tournament director immediately. Twitch Rules1a.- Streamer Rule - During a game, change your chat type to emote-only, or instruct your chat moderators to delete any messages that suggest moves. 1b.- Enabling a stream delay to counter stream sniping for the duration of the games would be encouraged. 2.- Streamer / Player Rule - During a game, please do not join calls or talk in direct messages with anybody discussing moves. This is blatant cheating, frowned upon, and will lead to your disqualification from the W4PCC. Even if you are muted or have others on the call muted/are not discussing your game. Do not interact with any 3rd parties during your game. 3.- Viewer Rule - In the case that a player streaming W4PCC does not have their chat restricted to emote-only, do NOT under any circumstance suggest moves. In other words, don’t kibitz. 4.- Player / Viewer Rule - Do not attempt to gain an advantage by viewing a player’s stream during your game. In other words, don’t stream snipe. Other rules:If you are qualified via the top two of the arenas or were notified of qualification via leaderboard selection or alternative selection, you must refrain from playing other Qualifier Arenas for this Championship. Failure to do so may result in forfeiture of qualification for the arena previously selected from. As a standard, the 1st offense is a disqualification from arena qualified in 2nd offense is a disqualification from the 2025 FFA W4PCC itself.Failure to read and adhere to any applicable rules may result in disciplinary action, up to and including disqualification, and violation of core policies (Fair Play, Community Guidelines, etc.) during this tournament may result in account closure. In addition, accounts must have been created 28 days before the start of this tournament (February 19, 2025, or earlier). Furthermore, play-bans, sitewide mutes, and account closures may result in disqualification if in effect during the time of play; chat-bans may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and may not be removed for the convenience of communicating during the matches. Preliminaries and Finals are planned to be broadcasted on https://www.twitch.tv/fourplayerchess . We look forward to seeing you play in the championship! Best of luck to all players trying out! Luke RomankoW4PCC Tournament Director

Hello 4 Player Chess fans and veterans! Based on a lot of feedback received in the past few years, we admit that the starting position chosen as a new default 2 years ago during the Merge has significant issues that negatively impact the opening variety and the overall game experience. We're excited to announce the 4PC Festival and put as much effort as possible to organize a comprehensive testing of potential alternative 4PC setups. The Backstory Since 4 player chess was first introduced on chess.com, all the kings initially lived on the light squares. But there were several issues in both Teams and FFA related to the balance of the game, such as Blue and Green were better positionally while Red and Yellow had a tactical advantage, which led to Red and Yellow being easier to play whilst Blue and Green required more precision to maintain equality, and thus, to an unequal win/lose ratio (see stats, see engine eval). Given regular complaints coming from new players, who have not yet learned all the openings and lines to have enough self-defense, and a desire of higher-rated players to improve and balance the game, the former admin team decided to consider alternative starting positions of 4PC, and the first candidate was Omatamix setup (with Blue and Green kings placed on the dark squares instead) first proposed in October 2019 and then actively discussed during 2021. At the end of the year it was announced that the Omatamix position will likely become the standard position of 4 Player Chess, and so several 1-month long tournaments were organized in order to gather feedback from the community. Many liked the new position, some did not. With the sudden appearance of many alternative 4PC positions (BSRTI, BSRTI-Invented) things became quite messy, the opinions went back and forth; the 4PC 2.0 release date was quite close and there were time constraints related to it. Thus, after many internal discussions by the admin team and their voting process, it was decided to not interrupt the ongoing at that time tournaments of Omatamix position with another alternative setup. The overall feedback on the Omatamix setup seemed quite positive, except for several high-rated players expressing their concerns about losing the opening theory that had been explored for many years or being strongly against switching to the new setup in general. Their arguments, however, were not convincing to the former admin team, who believed that it's a matter of habit, not liking any changes, and that losing the opening theory is okay because a new one will be developed shortly for the new setup. The huge 4PC platform update was about to be released (aka the release of Variants), and it would attract a lot of new players never having played 4PC before. Changing the starting position to a very balanced one and starting a new period of "better" 4PC on a new bigger platform did make sense. Was it a mistake? Yes. Once the Variants platform was released (the event is further called merge), the servers were very unstable. Endless disconnects and lags, many bugs, weird new UI with awkward navigation, and so many other things that negatively impacted 4PC players and their user experience, especially after moving away from a comfortable and well-explored 4PC-targeted app. The starting position change was too hasty. More time should have been dedicated. More alternatives should have been considered. And finally, releasing many updates at once made a synergistic negative effect. We acknowledge this, we learned from it, and we’ll do our best to never let it happen again. Why the change was not reverted? This is a quite common question being asked, why the change wasn’t reverted as soon as there we a lot of negative feedback received about it, from high-rated and well-respected players included? The position of the former admin team can be expressed in the following single quote: “ What a mess this has become. You know what divides a collective of enthusiasts? Giving legitimacy to multiple factions, then flip-flopping and reversing course; Swaying the official platform back and forth within a timeframe which is comically too short for anyone to acclimate. If you say you're taking a certain direction, stick with it. If it turns out in a bad way, given enough time for a fair consideration by all sides, then consider alternatives. Don't immediately roll back your changes just because a few people threaten to boycott, or protest. It’s worth mentioning, however, that despite the negative feedback from multiple high-rated players, we received plenty of positive ones. And the more time passed since the merge, the stronger the reasons became to not revert the changes. Several high-rated players who first were against the new setup and were boycotting it, later started playing and discovered that it actually has its own positive sides. In the middle of 2023, an official anonymous poll was created for middle- and high-rated 4PC players on Variants. So far, this is the only poll with the number of participants being over 1000, which given over 1.5 million unique users having played 4PC last year in total makes it the only one that most accurately describes the current state of opinions around setups. The story behind dead 4PC Since the merge, we’ve endlessly seen players claiming and mentioning that 4PC is dying. So is it dead already? Certainly, yes. Some may say. But despite that, we’ve made a comprehensive analysis of the current state of 4PC activity, and the numbers prove that it’s not only alive but also was never really dying! Then why would it look like it did? Because it’s “dying” from March to November every year. It’s a seasonal behavior that can be seen on the chart below: The merge has certainly affected the decline of the number of weekly games played. The number of games literally dropped by 3 times in the first 3 months. This is what caused a feeling of 4PC dying. However, the merge did not trigger the decline itself, it only made it more rapid and drastic. That said, we can also see that while there is a general slight decline of games in Teams, FFA has been pretty much growing in popularity once recovered from the seasonal decline in 2022. The number of weekly active players remained almost untouched and more than recovered by December 2022. Solving the Dilemma It’s been a tough time for all of us. But things have got a lot better. There are no longer lags and endless server disconnects that we used to have. We've got a monitoring system and advanced tools for gathering statistics we can now use for important decision making. Chess.com has now paid more attention to Variants organizing amazing Community Events that attract more players to join Variants, where 4PC is still the variant #1. And the chaos around 4PC setups has now settled down a little, so we’re ready to move on. We've changed the standard position once, we don't want to do it in the same way again, whether it is Old setup or BY setup. What we want is: Make Old Standard more visible and officially supported. Motivate players and creators who stopped playing 4PC because it's been dropped to play again. Encourage playing Old Standard again, not with a collapsed "Old setup" button. Do no force old players to switch to and keep playing New Standard (which was the main course we’ve had since the merge). Support and encourage testing and exploring alternative setups in an organized way. Equalizing setups As seen from the poll results above, the opinions are currently divided roughly in half. Instead of forcefully trying to unite two player bases, we’ll now encourage the split in half. We can't come up with a setup that looks exactly like old setup for ones, and exactly like new setup for others. It will be a completely different setup that looks like neither of them. So we won't make another setup switch. Instead, we’ll put all potential setups as separate and equal options for players to choose. Then, having the setups "equalized", we will go through testing each of them, supporting this process by active events. After that, we will gather feedback, game statistics, application responses, and votes from all the participants. If all of that will be enough to define a new standard starting position of 4 Player Chess (we obviously need one) for the next 10-20 years, we’ll do it. If not, we’ll continue investigation and active discussions, considering other alternatives if needed. Obviously, having multiple "equally important" starting positions might create more confusion for users and split the 4PC community even further that isn't just big enough for that. This may lead to even longer wait times for a game to start which is still a real issue nowadays. Therefore, we’re making several UI updates to enhance the user experience of trying, exploring, and playing different setups. We're including detailed, but concise and useful descriptions for all the potential setups, and will alternate the active setup each month, advertising it over others. We believe that these steps along with advertising events around it, support by content creators, and old players getting back to playing 4PC more actively, have all the potential to compensate the split consequences. At the same time, we will keep monitoring and publishing stats on this every week, and be ready to proactively make decisions based on community feedback and the data we receive. The Festival We are excited to announce the 4PC Festival, a series of events that will last for 6 months and are meant to provide an environment for all players to thoroughly test the alternative setups of 4PC. Each month (June, July, August, September, October) a specific setup will be chosen to be active during the month. A set of casual arenas will be organized during each month to explore the active setup and 6 qualifiers will take place on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the last 2 weeks of each month. The Festival will be split into two parts: FFA and Teams; both events will run simultaneously and have their own individual finals and semifinals. The casual Teams arenas will have a regular format where you can explore a potential 4PC setup with your teammate together, but the qualifiers and the finals will be Self-Partner. We want to focus on the quality and the coverage of the testing we provide, so all arenas, including the qualifiers, will cover different time controls: 1|7, 4min, 1|1 for FFA and 1|15D, 4min, 2|1 for Teams. The variety of different time controls will be further expanded in finals! The winners of the FFA qualifiers and an additional best-performed player within all FFA qualifying arenas will be invited to participate in the FFA Semifinals. Similarly, the winners of the Teams qualifiers and the best-performed player within all Teams qualifying arenas will be invited to participate in the Teams Semifinals. In November, the great battle will be organized between the winners of the qualifiers with a total cash prize fund of $2000! All five different starting positions will be tested inside and out in a competitive style under all of the different time controls in both semifinals and finals of both FFA and Teams. Prizes Each qualifying arena offers the following prizes: 1st place: 3-month Diamond Membership (+ qualify to the Semifinals) 2nd place: 2-month Diamond Membership 3rd place: 1-month Diamond Membership The Finals offer the following prizes: 1st place: $500 2st place: $250 3rd place: $150 4th place: $100 Learn more about schedule and regulations here. Setups The Festival will feature 5 different setups in the following order: Modern (the current setup, also known as Omatamix) BY BYG (pronounced as “big”) Classic (the old setup) TBD The selection of the fifth setup will be done through public voting. One of the candidates for now is bsrti-invert, but certainly more alternatives should be considered. The voting will start during the first two months of the Festival and will continue for the next 2-3 months. Until then, discussions are more than welcome! There is a lot more to cover that didn't fit in this post, and we will include more details in the next announcements. Meanwhile, feel free to discuss and ask questions; we've included some general ones in the Q&A section below and will keep it updated as more questions come in. Q&A Q: Who is eligible to participate? A: Everyone, however, FFA Rapid qualifiers will have a rating restriction of 2400+. That's all the exciting news in short. There's more to come, so stay tuned!

Claiming the Win When there are only 2 players left and the player with the most points is ahead of his opponent by 21 points or more (41 points for "+40"-games), then that player will win even if he resigns. In this case the resign button is renamed to "Claim Win". Example: Red has 100 points, Blue 55, Yellow (eliminated) 10, Green (eliminated) 5. -> Red will see a "Claim Win" button rather than a "Resign" button, as he will win even if he resigns.  (Note that points do not affect ratings changes, only final placement does)   Autoclaim In some cases a player will be forced to claim the win, that is to say the server will press the claim win button for him. This happens when there is an eliminated player in 2nd place who is at least 20 (or 40) points ahead of 3rd. This prevents the winner from gifting points to the remaining opponent in 3rd to overtake the eliminated player in 2nd. Autoclaim protects eliminated players in 2nd place.   Examples: Red has 100 points, Blue 55 (eliminated), Yellow 10, Green (eliminated) 5. -> The server will autoclaim the win for Red to ensure that Blue gets 2nd place. Autoclaim prevents Red from gifting points to Yellow to overtake Blue.   Red has 100 points, Blue 55 (eliminated), Yellow 40, Green (eliminated) 5. -> Red can claim the win, but the server will not autoclaim the win for Red because Yellow will overtake Blue even if Red claims immediately. Note that Yellow is not guaranteed second however, because Red could checkmate Yellow (or Yellow might resign) before overtaking Blue.   Hint: In analysis/replay mode, the resign button (flag icon) will indicate Claim win or Autoclaim by changing the icon to a cup or checkmark: Autoresign For Solo games only: If there are only two players left, and one of them cannot win (there aren’t enough points left to be made to reach 1st), the he is forced to resign. This prevents “king making” (deciding the winner) by a player who cannot win himself.

@jotahernandezv has written up a translation of this post for the 4PC Spanish club, you can find it here. You will need to join the club the first time you click the link if you are not yet a member. Hi four player chess enthusiasts; this post applies to FFA players who are concerned about playing against a pre-arranged team, and I hope you read it before reporting players for "prearranged teaming," because probably 98%+ of the reports we get are complete bogus. If you suspect after a game that two players in your FFA game were teaming, you can do one simple thing to help yourself send an actually helpful report: CHECK HOW OFTEN THESE TWO PLAYERS HAVE PLAYED TOGETHER. I can't tell you how many hundreds of reports of players "teaming" we've received where it turns out that one game was the single game the two accused had ever played together! Maybe the accuser could have spent 20 seconds looking at this available information themselves before sending the report! I will walk you step by step on how to use the archive for this purpose: The Magicks of the Archive (1. First of all, click the archive button at the top of the screen while you aren't playing a game) (2. Suppose one of the players suspected of teaming is gustavklimtpaints; type their name into the search field) (3. click the arrow with bar button on the bottom right of the panel to bring up the extra search features) (4. type the name of the second player into the second name field, right below the first; it might show you suggestions of matching usernames) (5. Let's also make sure we are searching farther back than 2 weeks: select "All" from the date list - to the right of the name field) (6. Since we are concerned about teaming in FFA, let's select FFA from the game type list) (7. Let's also select "Rated" or "WTA" in case these players might have played many casual games together, which would confuse our results) (8. Looks like in this case these players have only ever played a single rated FFA game together, in which they both lost; they probably aren't very good, and they probably aren't teaming! Good to know!) So does this conclusively show that two players haven't entered in some sort of prearranged agreement? Not exactly, they could be for example playing on many various usernames to avoid anyone else noticing two users are playing many games together; this is one reason we don't allow players to play on multiple accounts (and we monitor this by IP address). It is very hard at this point for players to actually team effectively, especially in the higher rated FFA games, as they are very easily caught. Let's talk about what most reports about "teaming" refer but which are not actually teaming. This is all likely all news if you've played FFA for a while, but this post is directed to players at all levels. Oftentimes in FFA most threats on your position will be made by the players to your left and your right, especially in the early to middle part of the game; you can think of how difficult it is for the player across from you to threaten your position: their Knights are very far away, their Bishops would have to zig zag through dangerous enemy territory to threaten a square across the board, their Rooks are likely stuck behind other pawns \ pieces for a while; and it is unlikely they will move their queen near you where you can threaten it, while the other two players will create other threats against them. THEREFORE IT IS A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF THE GEOMETRY OF THE BOARD THAT MOST THREATS WILL COME FROM THE SIDE PLAYERS. Anytime your left player can check you, capture a piece, create a threat on one of your pieces, or even create the threat of a threat, it gives an opportunity to the right player to create a threat of their own. You must be aware at all times of the opportunities the other players have to capture your pieces on convenient terms, check you, or threaten your pieces, and do your best to stay one step ahead of them. For this reason, FFA can be very positional, but of course you cannot avoid all unpleasant situations forever; you must accept losing material at times and try to find similar opportunities on your opponents and come out ahead in the scramble, but please do not play expecting the privilege that two players are not supposed to double attack you and then report them for teaming, because in this case, it is only your own failure to understand the game! Thanks for reading my spiel. PS: you can use the archive for other cool things like searching "All" your games and checking how many "1st," "2nd," "3rd," "4th" you have received in all your games; hest1805 has a ridiculous 1st place finish percentage! I'll let you discover other cool ways to use the archive.

FFA/Solo WC 2019: 1st: CM Evgeni Miller | 2nd: Bijan Popadic | 3rd: Fifth_Something | 4th: Justin Davis 2020: 1st: Lars Johan Brodtkorb; Finalists: Marie Mercedes "Mercy" Quino Ixtepan | Arseny Vasily Kuzmin | Tien Dat Do 2021: 1st: Lars Johan Brodtkorb; Finalists: José Bolea | Michael T. Tieber | Suneth Karunaratne 2022: 1st: Lars Johan Brodtkorb; Finalists: Toni Vardi | José Bolea | Gonzalo Rojo 2023 OS: 1st: Delan Lara; Finalists: Carlos Tadeo | José Bolea | Ricardo Damian Carrasco Garrido 2023 NS: 1st: Carlos Tadeo; Finalists: Delan Lara | Arseny Kuzmin | Matei-Maria Uta Speed WC 2021: 1st: Luis Ignacio | 2nd: Delan Lara | 3rd: Elias Matthews | 4th: Mateusz Orzel 2024: 1st: Luis Ignacio | 2nd: Danila Chesnokov | 3rd: Caleb Brown | 4th: Patrik Nyström ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Tournaments 4pc FFA Premier League Pre-Season LB: 1st: José Bolea 2nd: Jai Sandhu 3rd: Martin Ávila T-4th: Loschess; Mateusz Orzel Preseason Finals: 1st: José Bolea 2nd: Jai Sandhu 3rd: rojitto 4th: Martin Ávila Season One BY LB: 1st: Martin Ávila 2nd: CM Evgeni Miller 3rd: Sofiene Ghrir Season One D1 LB: 1. Gonzalo Rojo 2. Luis Ignacio 3. Carlos Tadeo T4. Jens Walker & José Bolea Season One D2 LB: 1. lagodicomo 2. Martin Ávila * 3. chesmastercoolkid 4. Gavin Shi Season One Finals: 1st: Luis Ignacio 2nd: Mateusz Orzel 3rd: Carlos Tadeo 4th: Elias Matthews *tied by wins; I broke the tie by # of games Empty_K3's Tournaments First: 1 Arseny Kuzmin | 2 sumat777 | 3 Jerry Xiao | 4 Vahan Nalbandyan Second: 1 Vahan Nalbandyan | 2 Jerry Xiao | 3 Toni Vardi | 4 chirak Third/First Qualifier: 1 Toni Vardi | 2 Tien Dat Do | 3 willwma | 4 Leo Golovine We Are All 4pc Tournament 1st. Vahan Nalbandyan; 2nd. Mauricio Alejandro Moreno; 3rd. GarrryChess; 4th. Carlos Tadeo Radon 2022 OS Match One win: Vahan Nalbandyan/Gonzalo Rojo/Jai Sandhu 0 wins: Luis Ignacio 2020 Solo Qualifier Tournament Tournament1 Division1: chirak (2); Arseny Kuzmin/Besher (1); roadrunner18 (0) T1 D2: Bijan Popadic (2); LagodiComo (1); Leo Golovine* & olowobaba (0) T2 D1: Michael T. Tieber (2); Jesaul/Znim/Magicsteph (0) T2 D2: Henrik Storesund (2); LagodiComo (1); ShahUnchained & Uroš Stanimirović (0) T3 D1: Varun Gadi (2); Leo Golovine (1); Arthur Almeida & lucho7501 (0) T3 D2: Marie Mercedes "Mercy" Quino (2); Lars Johan Brodtkorb (1); Uroš Stanimirović (0); roadrunner18 (0) *sub for LucianoBonifico Hest1805’s 2020 Solo Tournament 1: Michael T. Tieber vs tacopower5 vs Arseny Kuzmin (1st) vs Henrik Storesund 2: 7Andy vs Leo Golovine vs Arseny Kuzmin vs Henrik Storesund (1st) Neo’s Challenges 1st: Carlos Tadeo (winner/1) vs Biljan Popadic vs Henrik Storesund vs Vahan Nalbandyan 2nd: Uroš Stanimirović (1.5) vs khazekamel (.5) vs Biljan Popadic vs Chesskq75 4 Player Chess Ultrabullet Cup Season 1  1st: RapturousRhinoceros; 2nd: QuackForTheWin; 3rd: Gavin Shi; 4th: joshuapro2021 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FFA/Solo WC Overall Participants (6x) Biljan Popadic (neoserbian) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019) (5x) Carlos Tadeo (carlsogabriel1234) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2022, 2021, 2020) [2019 Sub] (5x) Delan Lara (Grathieben) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2022, 2021, 2020) (5x) Jose Bolea (jbolea) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2022, 2021, 2019) (5x) Lars Johan Brodtkorb (icystun) (2023 OS, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019) (5x) Michael T. Tieber (empty_K3) (2023 NS, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019) (4x) Gonzalo Rojo (rojitto) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2022, 2021) (4x) Matei-Maria Uta (a1t19) (2023 NS, 2022, 2021, 2019) (4x) Vahan Nalbandyan (Cha_ChaRealSmooth) (2023 NS, 2022, 2021, 2020) (3x) Evgeni Miller (JonasRath) (2023 NS, 2020, 2019) (3x) Tien Dat Do (Sleepy_Fox4/4kaks) (2023 NS, 2023 OS, 2020) (2x) Andrius Mkrtcian (NightLoveRaver) (2023 OS, 2023 NS) (2x) Arseny Kuzmin (Arseny_Vasily) (2023 NS, 2020) (2x) Gavin Shi (ChessMasterGS) (2023 OS, 2023 NS) (2x) Henrik Storesund (hest1805) (2020, 2019) (2x) Luis Ignacio (Eyeofthetiger1204) (2023 OS, 2021) (2x) Mohammad Rahman (yasmin-er-vatar) (2023 NS, 2021) (2x) Suneth Karunaratne (Suneth) (2022, 2021) (2x) Toni Vardi (vrdtmr) (2022, 2023 NS) (1x) Giliam Datema (GDII) (2020) [2019 Sub] (1x) Ambroise Huchede (ayama_7) (2023 NS) (1x) Andrej Ristevski (me43) (2019) (1x) Arthur Almeida (lagpress) (2020) (1x) Aswin Devendran (sakthi09) (2021) (1x) Besher Kaderi (Besher) (2023 OS) (1x) Caleb Brown (HSCCCalebBrown) (2020) (1x) Calvin Chiu (absorbingtrance) (2023 NS) (1x) Chad Leonard (Chad_TheChamp) (2023 NS) (1x) IM Claudio Coppola (ccoppola) (2023 NS) (1x) Danila (Promaster2006) (2023 OS) (1x) Elias Matthews (Darksquareman) (2022) (1x) NM Ethan Bashkansky (playablecharacter) (2021) (1x) Etienne Dion (Bill13Cooper) (2019) (1x) Fifth_Something (2019) (1x) george56789 (2019) (1x) Jai Sandhu (Radon) (2022) (1x) Jens Walker (NoWellOkay) (2023 NS) (1x) Jeremy Cawthon (LazyImp) (2023 OS) (1x) Justin Davis (JustinD7) (2019) (1x) Kamalanathan Ravichandran (khazekamal) (2020) (1x) KarthikElangoGM (2019 (1x) Kim Hok-jun (WarQueen21) (2023 NS) (1x) Leo Golovine (Indipendenza) (2022) (1x) Luke Romanko (FourPlayerChess) (2022) (1x) Marie Mercedes "Mercy" Quino Ixtepan (merceq1) (2020) (1x) Martin Ávila (martinaxo) (2023 NS) (1x) Mateusz Franczak (OstryMeg123) (2023 NS) (1x) Mathias Søraa (msoraa) (2023 OS) (1x) Mauricio Alejandro Moreno (MoreMao) (2022) (1x) GM Max Illingworth (Illingworth) (2021) (1x) Maximiliano Mondino (epfc1994) (2023 NS) (1x) Mohamed Benzaqui (Rum_X) (2023 NS) (1x) Oscar Cortizon (romison) (2019) (1x) Patrik Saár (S_Patrik) (2023 OS) (1x) Prathamesh Ramane (kongiback19) (2023 NS) (1x) raffa25 (2019) (1x) Ricardo Damian Carrasco Garrido (RicharCG) (2023 OS) (1x) NM Sherzod Khodjimatov (matenitian) (2021) (1x) Sofiene Ghrir (Slayer950) (2023 NS) (1x) Uroš Stanimirović (MuppetRobin) (2023 NS) (1x) Varun Gadi (chessisfunforme) (2020) YalinTala [2019 Sub] Speed WC Overall Participants (2x) Luis Ignacio (Eyeofthetiger1204) (2021) (2024) (1x) Delan Lara (Grathieben) (2021) (1x) Elias Matthews (Darksquareman) (2021) (1x) Mateusz Orzel (Mati4333) (2021) (1x) Carlos Tadeo (carlsogabriel1234) (2021) (1x) Jeremy Cawthon (Karmas_Revenge) (2021) (1x) Jerry Xiao (Jcrossover08) (2021) (1x) IM Mihn To (DragonB70) (2021) (1x) Danila Chesnokov (Promaster2006) (2024) (1x) Gonzalo Rojo (rojitto) (2024) (1x) Caleb Brown (HSCCCB) (2024) (1x) Gavin Shi (chessmastergs) (2024) (1x) Henry Liu (rapturousrhinocerous) (2024) (1x) Joshua Probert (joshuapro2021) (2024) (1x) Patrik Nyström pknm (2024) 6/26/2024

Last updated: May 19, 2023 Game Rules Pieces move the same way as in regular chess and castling is also the same. The game may be played with or without en-passant captures. Teams The players across from each other form a team: Red+Yellow and Blue+Green. The game starts with Red and turns continue in clockwise order: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green. A teammate's pieces cannot be captured. A player's pieces are never absolutely pinned to a teammate's king, i.e. a player may move a piece out of the way, leaving his teammate in discovered check by an enemy piece. Pawns promote to queens on the 11th row from each player's perspective. Checkmate only takes effect when a player's turn is reached, allowing a player's teammate to intervene. The first team to checkmate one of the opposing team's players wins the game. The game is a draw in case of stalemate, insufficient material, three-fold repetition or the 50-move rule. When resigning or timing out on the first move, a player loses rating and the game is aborted. After disconnecting, a player has 60 seconds to reconnect or he will automatically forfeit the game on time. The standard time control is 1 minute with a 15-second delay each move. Free-For-All (FFA) The goal is to finish with the highest amount of points of all players. Points can be earned in the following ways: Checkmating an opponent (+20) Stalemating yourself (+20) Capturing active pieces: king (+20), queen (+9), rook (+5), bishop (+5), knight (+3), pawn (+1), promoted queen (+1) Checking two players simultaneously: without a queen (+5) / with a queen (+1) Checking three players simultaneously: without a queen (+20) / with a queen (+5) Pieces become inert when a player is eliminated and they no longer award any points when captured. Pawns promote to 1-point queens on the 8th row from each player's perspective. When a player resigns or times out, their army will become “dead” but their king remains "live" and will continue to move until checkmated or stalemated. Points for stalemated resigned kings are shared among all remaining players. The last remaining player will be given +20 for each king of all resigned or timed out players that is still on the board. The game ends when three players have been eliminated. The player with the most points wins the game. (Note that this is not necessarily the last remaining player.) In some cases a player may claim a win or the server will auto-claim a win, if that player cannot be surpassed in points anymore (see Claim Win and Auto-claim). In case of insufficient material, three-fold repetition or the 50-move rule, the remaining players receive +10 points each. When resigning or timing out before having made at least four moves AND if no player has points yet AND the resigning or timed out player is not in check, that player loses rating and the game is aborted. In case of custom starting positions or time controls of one minute or less without increment, a game is aborted if a player resigns or times out on the first move. After disconnecting, a player has 60 seconds to reconnect or he will automatically forfeit the game on time. The standard time control is 1 minute with a 15-second delay each move. Rules of Conduct A player shall NOT use multiple accounts to play a four-player chess game (self-partnering). Self-teaming is only allowed in the dedicated mode. Also a player shall NOT use their approved secondary accounts to watch their own games (or use a primary account to watch games of a secondary account). By the way, having multiple accounts is against the Terms and Conditions of Chess.com, unless approved by Chess.com. A player shall NOT publicly accuse another player on the forum when suspecting a violation of the rules. A report can be sent using the Report option from the player's info pop-up window (see Reporting Violations below). A player shall NOT use any abusive or vulgar language, personal attacks, threats or display any other unkind behaviour, nor shall a player spam or advertise, start religious or political debates or discuss illegal activities. In the FFA variant, a player shall NOT attempt to influence another player's decisions via chat (rule-violating chat). This includes: Begging for points to obtain a higher position in the final game ranking. Offering points to other players to give them a higher position in the final game ranking. Suggesting moves to other players or discussing moves when it may still affect the gameplay. (Note: during a game it is allowed to discuss moves after the fact, when it no longer has any influence on the gameplay.) Revealing intentions to other players that may influence the gameplay. Asking or proposing to collude with another player. A player shall NOT intentionally and frequently abandon, abort or throw games to obtain a lower rating (sandbagging) or to make a teammate lose rating (in the Teams variant), nor shall a player intentionally abandon games in lost positions (poor sportsmanship). In the Teams variant, a player shall NOT partner with a sandbagged teammate to gain more rating points. In the FFA variant, players shall NOT go out of their way to get into games together and consistently play in a way that benefits one or both of them (prearranged teaming / collusion), nor shall players use the chat to collude. Breaking any of the aforementioned rules may result in a temporary or permanent chat- or play-ban or even a club-ban, depending on the case. Reporting Violations How to report? The preferred way to report a player is by using the Report option from the player's info pop-up window. This can be done during a game, after a game has finished or later from the Archive by clicking the player's name and subsequently clicking the Report icon, "(!)" (see image below). When reporting a player from within a game, the following dialog window will be shown: Check the box(es) of the player(s) involved in the rule violation and select the appropriate report reason. (Note: do NOT send separate reports for each player.) Optionally, use the message field to give further details related to the case. When choosing "Other" as reason, please make sure to specify a reason in the message field. It is also possible to report a player from outside a game, in which case the dialog window will look as follows: Please, only do this if the report is not related to a specific game. Otherwise, report a player from within the game (either live or from the Archive) or at least mention the game number(s), such that admins can review the game(s). (Alternatively, reports can be sent the old way, using the Report Abuse option from the Help menu. In that case, please, do not forget to mention the game number(s) in your report.) When (not) to report? Most reports that come in actually turn out to be unjustified and are rejected after review. Unjustified reports not only give admins more work, but it also means that it takes more time before justified reports are handled and acted upon. Therefore, please make sure your report is justified before you send it. If you are found sending too many unjustified reports, you may even get a report timeout, meaning you cannot send reports for some time. So, which cases are report-worthy and which are not? Offensive chat / Spamming Report Players who frequently or continuously use abusive / vulgar language. (*) Players who harass or threaten other players. Players who flood the chat with spam. Do NOT report Players who, in the heat of the moment, use an offensive word or insult, e.g. "idiot" (when a player makes a bad move). Rule-violating chat (FFA) Report Players who beg for points, e.g. "I just need 5 points", "let me take your bishop", "give me 2nd place", etc. Players who offer points, e.g. "you can have my rook", "I'll give you 2nd place", etc. Players who suggest (good) moves, e.g. "check Red", "the knight is hanging", "mate in 2", etc. Players who reveal their intentions, e.g. "I won't take your queen", "I will only attack Blue", etc. Players who (plan to) collude, e.g. "let's attack Green", "support my rook", etc. Do NOT report Players who, during the game, discuss previous moves or positions that no longer have any influence on the gameplay, e.g. "missed mate on Yellow", "the queen was hanging", "Ne10 was better", "you shouldn't have let Red promote", etc. Players who suggest clearly bad moves to others. Players who offer points for 2nd place in a position where claiming a win would give the other player 2nd place anyway. Players who sacrifice material for no apparent reason. Players who tell others to resign or claim a win. Abandoning games / Sandbagging Report Players who have a bad habit of disconnecting in lost positions. (*) Players who intentionally and frequently abandon, abort or throw games to lower their rating. (*) Players who intentionally and frequently resign prematurely and throw games to spoil other players' games or make them lose rating (Teams). (*) Do NOT report Players who lose connection or time out in a single game. There could be many valid reasons why players abandon a game. Some players may simply have a bad connection. Players who resign in (what they believe is) a losing position (Teams). It shows good manners to ask a teammate first before resigning, but if a player chooses to resign in a losing position, that is not report-worthy. Sometimes a player may also mistakenly assess a position to be losing. Self-partnering Report Players who you suspect to be playing with two accounts in a game to gain an unfair advantage. (*) Do NOT report Players who gang up on another player. This does not mean it is one and the same person using multiple accounts. When suspecting collusion, report players for prearranged teaming instead. Prearranged teaming (FFA) Report Players who make an effort to get into games together and consistently play in a way that benefits one or both of them. Note: this means it has to be apparent from the players' game history that they frequently play together to collude. (*) Players who use the chat to collude and coordinate moves and attacks against other players. Do NOT report Players who take advantage of other players' attacks and threats or temporarily cooperate in a non-arranged way for mutual benefit. This is an inherent part of the game and is allowed. It is often simply the natural result of a player's position having weaknesses or being inadequately defended. In the cases marked with (*), please check multiple games first in the Archive to confirm your suspicion before you send a report. In these cases admins will NOT take action against players based on just a single game. How to use the Archive? The Archive can be found in the menu on the right, next to the Leaderboard (see image below). In the Archive you can look up all previously played games of all players. The Archive can be a very useful aid to check if a player is breaking rules on a regular basis or if it was just a one-time violation. You can refine your search by applying filters, using the Advanced search option, which can be accessed by clicking the icon on the right (see images below). You can specify a second player to list the games that two players played together. A quick look at their shared game history may reveal whether they frequently play together and collude or not. If your suspicion is confirmed, you can send your report, including any game numbers of other games to support your case. To quickly go through multiple archived games, you can use the Previous/Next arrows in the bottom right corner (see image below). This way you can easily find out if, for example, a player frequently uses abusive language, spams or abandons, aborts or prematurely resigns games. The number of aborted games is also shown when hovering the mouse over the number of games in a player's info pop-up window. Any help is appreciated! Keep in mind that 4-Player Chess is moderated by volunteers who dedicate some of their spare time to keeping the games free from cheaters and unwanted behaviour. Any help is always welcome, but we ask that you please only send reports of which you are certain they are justified and do not report every single minor offence. That way we can focus on the serious violations and keep 4-Player Chess enjoyable for everyone!

Welcome to the 4-Player Chess (4PC) discussion forum. This club is a resource for anyone looking to dive deeper into the ideas, theory, and community of 4PC, and for its players to meet, share thoughts, and discuss specifics of the game. To better allow for a productive and healthy exchange of ideas, there are a few rules that we ask all club members and commenters to follow. 6 Simple rules: Comments shared on the forum must have purpose and be related to 4PC. Do not advertise on this forum. No spam. Be kind to one another. Do not use this forum as a means to accuse another player of rule-breaking. This forum is moderated at the discretion of the admins, and by the admins alone. Posts and comments which do not follow these rules may be removed, edited or locked. Frequent abusers of these rules may be temporarily or permanently muted within this forum, or banned from this club entirely with or without warning. All rules and community guidelines for chess.com must be followed on this forum, even if not explicitly listed here. 1. Comments shared on this forum must have purpose and be related to 4PC. New post content must be discussion-worthy. Don't simply post a game link. There are over 10,000 games of 4PC played daily, so there isn't room for everyone to share his game. If you're showcasing a particular game, be sure to add your commentary! We want to hear what about this game makes it special, unusual, tactically-advanced, etc. Consider whether or not other members of this club will have useful contributions to your chosen topic. If your purpose is simply to "show and tell," perhaps your topic would be better suited as a post on your personal profile, or as a blog post. "Leaving 4PC Forever" is not discussion-worthy. Check to see if there are existing similarly-themed threads before creating a new one. Use the searchbar to lookup keywords related to your topic. In many cases, questions being asked through new threads have already been answered and discussed more fully than what you'll receive by starting a new post. This is most-often applicable for threads addressing specific questions related to gameplay mechanics, gamerules, tactics, opening principles, and the like. However, this can also be the case for game showcases, puzzles, or other topics. With questions on how the game is played, the rules, or mechanics, your questions can be forwarded directly to any 4PC admin. Don't create new threads about lag or bugs. This is the singular most-posted about topic, and those complaints have been addressed thoroughly many times over. You may add comments to any of the hundreds of already-existing threads on these topics, including our pinned bug thread. This forum is devoted to 4PC discussions. There must be some tie between your forum post or comment relating to the game of 4PC, or the 4PC community. 2. Do not advertise on this forum. Forum threads or comments inviting members to other clubs are not allowed. An exception is made for clubs specifically related to 4PC, i.e. the Custom Games Forum, The Hyper Club, etc. If sharing invitations to these types of clubs, support those invitations with commentary. Do not simply post a link without context. Forum threads or comments sharing information about YouTube / Twitch / Discord channels or servers are permitted if those channels frequently share 4PC content. If sharing content from these channels, be sure that it's relevant, and supported by commentary. Do not simply post a link without context. Please add a disclaimer if the content from these channels may not be suitable for younger audiences. You are not allowed to explicitly ask for subscriptions / follows / memberships or anything else requiring payment. Do not offer products, to work for hire, or ask others to do so. If interested in private or group coaching, you may ask the admins of 4PC if we know of any opportunities. 3. No spam. Threads and comments must support a larger overall discussion related to 4PC. Meaningless comments are not welcome. One- or two-word responses are meaningless. Comments such as "+1," "agree," or "lol" must be supported with further commentary. State why you agree or disagree with ideas, or what points you specifically support. Quote other users only when needed either in response, or to support / refute his words. Edit quotations to only the most pertinent excerpts, so as not to flood pages with words that have already been said. There is hardly ever significant enough reason to quote a user's entire posting in full. If commenting, share your opinions within one post. Posting multiple replies within the same thread sequentially is considered spam. If you need to add to your previous statements, edit that comment instead of creating a new one. If absolutely necessary, you are permitted to bump your own post once, and only once. "Bumping" refers to leaving a new comment on a thread in order to bring it back to the top of the list of recent posts in an effort to renew interest in it. If bumping your thread, please make an effort to add some new context or discussion to the topic. 4. Be kind to one another. If the purpose of your discussion points is to be spiteful, is targeting another player / a group of players, this is not the place to share those ideas. We recommend resolving disputes privately through direct contact, but you still must be kind in these private communications or you may face punishment from chess.com support staff. If the situation calls for more immediate action, you may contact any 4PC admin, or chess.com support. Do not use vulgar / sexually-explicit / unfriendly language, or promote hateful ideas. This includes the racial, homophobic, and xenophobic slurs. This includes references to any illegal activity. This includes links to websites or channels which frequently violate this rule. This rule, and all others, applies no matter the language in which it's posted. Private information should not be shared. Be respectful of the information other players have decided to share about themselves. Sharing personal details about yourself is not a good idea and is discouraged, but sharing personal details about someone else without his/her consent is strictly prohibited. Do not solicit this information from other players. 5. Do not use this forum as a means to accuse or report another player of rule-breaking. Rule-breakers within 4PC can be reported directly to admins. More information on how to do so can be found here. Rule-breakers within this forum can be reported by directly messaging an admin. 6. This forum is moderated at the discretion of the admins, and by the admins alone. If we choose to take action or not take action on a forum thread, comment, or user, that action cannot be appealed. Having said that, if you are unsure about why an action was taken against you or your content, you may privately message an admin with inquiries. However, realise that we may not respond, or we may not answer your question fully. Our decisions are final, and will hardly ever be reversed. The rules listed above are given as guidelines for forum content. They are not the only rules we enforce, nor are they all enforced at all times. We act in the best interest of the 4PC community at large, and will, in most cases, be discrete and restrained in our moderation efforts. Do not mini-mod. If someone is breaking these rules deliberately, you may report them to the admins. Please include a link to where a rule was broken. The admin team is active on these forums, and uses discretion when enforcing these rules. Unless you believe a user is knowingly and purposefully breaking rules, or is doing so in a manner causing significant damage to this community, you may assume that it will be dealt with in due time, and according to the judgement of the admins. If reporting incidents to the admins, you may not receive a response, although we appreciate your suggestions an vigilance. The rules above may be changed at any time.

Hello All, Recently, we've seen a flood of New Custom Positions (NCPs) being posted. We love the enthusiasm, creativity, and desire to make 4PC Variants. Position submissions used to be handled all on a single thread, but with the increased number, the decision was made to have creators separate each NCP into a dedicated new thread. We underestimated however, the amount of "forum spam," this would cause in a forum dedicated to 4PC discussion in general. Lately, those conversation have been somewhat muted by the deluge of NCP submissions. Therefore, we've made a decision to once again change how NCPs can be submitted for listing consideration. A new official club, separate from this main 4PC hub, has been created solely for the creation of custom variant positions. From this point forward, we ask that any NCP creators join that club, and make their postings there instead of here. 4PC Custom Games Club You'll also notice that there is a thread posted in that forum detailing the requirements for NCP submission. That thread may look similar to the old requirement thread posted in this forum, but please take note that in addition to a new submission forum, we have also updated several of the requirements. As this club will continue to serve as the discussion hub for all things 4PC, including variant play, you may still discuss positions, themes, tactics, etc, here, but please refrain from posting NCP (or WOF) threads here. NCP submissions on this forum will no longer be considered. Thank You.

Free-for-All / Solo Basic Guides: Beginner tips and fundamentals Your best friend, backstabber and worst enemy 10 Basic Strategic Tips How to Play 4 Player Chess Solo-Play strategy guide Teams Basic Guides: Strategy tips for teams 4PC Teams - Why coordination is important for winning Advanced Guides: 1|15 FFA 2000+ tutorial: Balance in the 3 player stage (FFA / Solo) List of 'named' opening theories and game' principles Elaboration on FFA tutorial: detailed but crucial factors to take into consideration Misc: Claim Win / Autoclaim / Autoresign How the rating system works Leaderboards Variants list 4PC WikiBook 4PC Statistics Development & Feedback: Feedback and Suggestions Report a bug Changelog How to report cheaters

In WFT, the Teams blitz leaderboard has been frozen for quite some days now. IT DOESN'T MOVE anymore and you cannot launch such games, it's Self For Throne instead (and with 1500 new ratings of course). Visibly some change has been made and incidentally impacted this. To be corrected, plz.

I don't know who decided about the championship formula, but it cannot be someone familiar with 4p chess. a) to put together total beginners (1500) and pros (let's say 2500+) was a very poor decision. It makes games irrelevant; and it's pretty easy for a decent player to finish 3rd or 4th in this configuration (example, Sakthi, one of the world best players, here 4th: https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/80599188) simply because other players attack him together and don't have a clue about how normal FFA games are played. As a result, strong players often lose rating in a very unfair manner. For instance, ARAARA (2nd world player) passed from 3103 to 3038 pts. Silly and unfair. b) if you are stuck in a 2300+ game (there were some), it will be long, whereas other players were lucky enough to get mostly 3 1500+ players in their games and therefore could play more games and earn more points. c) only ONE player per arena qualifies, it's not really fair nor very interesting for other strong players because the luck factor (whom you have in your games) has like this a huge importance. d) the fact that the games are semi-anon makes it unfair as well, and I won't even explain why, those who know the game will understand why to see for instance 2 1500-1600 players and one 2500 makes your decisions quite different from having for example 3 2100 players in front. e) often (example: Radon) you know where he is because they stream, and you know that he is in the game as it's not anon. Also makes it unfair. The overall result (Eye of the Tiger winning) is quite correct, BUT it was mainly time waste for other players, and no real pleasure as most of the games were low level.

apple1243

4pc community members, please provide feedback, opinions, and comments on the rules, questions, and proposals below: What did you all think of the current championship, and do you have anything you would like to change for next year? In addition, what are your opinions on the following questions and proposals? Q1: Would participants prefer 1/7 or a different time control? If so, what? Q2: Would you prefer “First to two wins/1.25” (current format) or “First to three wins/2.25” for the quarterfinals and semi-finals? Q3: Suggestions on how to make 4pc championships accessible to a wider audience? Q4: Opinions on the championship containing 12 LB players + 16 Arena Qualified players?  Q5: What should happen if a player loses because they disconnected? Proposal 1:  Change tiebreak from # of won games and then score of most recent game to:  Tiebreak suggestion A: “The tiebreaker for future reference and future editions should not be the last game, but the series as a whole. Meaning all previous results count towards the tiebreak with no preference for last game (unless identical tiebreak).”  Tiebreak suggestion B: A. tiebreak by # of games won B. tiebreak by # of games in second and third C. tiebreak by total # of points scored Proposal 2:  Old Language: “[if you qualify], you must refrain from playing other Qualifier Arenas for this Championship. Failure to do so may result in forfeiture of qualification for the arena previously selected from. As a standard, the 1st offense is a disqualification from arena qualified in 2nd offense is a disqualification from the 2025 FFA W4PCC itself.”  New Language: “[if you qualify], you must refrain from playing other Qualifier Arenas for this Championship. Failure to do so may result in forfeiture of qualification for the arena previously selected from or the tournament. If participants violate this rule while they appear to be unaware of it, then they should be warned (directly contacted through direct or game chat, or other means). If they do it a second time, they are disqualified from the arena and may be disqualified from the tournament. If participants violate this rule willfully they are disqualified from the tournament. This rule should be mentioned in pinned messages.”  (In addition, it would be good if players were locked out from playing in tournaments by the system, and then this issue could be avoided) Proposal 3:  Old Language: “Players may be disqualified and replaced upon failure to arrive before the 15th minute after the hour of the match time.” New Language: “Players may be disqualified and replaced upon failure to arrive before the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. If said player shows up before a replacement is found and rhetorically agreed upon by TD/player they will be allowed to play. If said player shows up after a replacement is found but before the game starts, they will not be allowed to play.” Please bring up any questions, comments, suggestions, and concerns you may have! — Current Rules for 2025 Championship: Schedule of the 2025 Modern FFA W4PCC: March 19 00:00 UTC: The top 12 from FFA rapid leaderboard are selected as the first 12 candidates. Those candidates will qualify for Round 2 and play in any of the March 30 time slots (0:00, 12:00, 16:00, or 20:00 UTC) on a first come first serve basis. Only the top 3 will be guaranteed their first choice. Players on the leaderboard will be messaged and expected to reply prior to March 20 00:00 UTC with their preferences of times they would like to compete on March 29, in order. Replacements will be #13-20 in order from that leaderboard, and then the highest rated player following* the Tournament Director (TD) or referee in charge. March 22-23 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 8x 3-hour 1+5 Rapid 2400+ qualifier arenas, top 2 each arena qualify. Games will be rated and anonymous. Players that fall below 2400 Rapid during the Arena can still complete the arena. While the arenas are 1+5 (normally a blitz time control), they are treated as Rapid Ratings for these arenas. Arena scoring will be 3-1-1-0. Streak bonuses will be removed. March 29 (Round 1) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: 16 players that qualified from the arenas (or substitutes thereof) will battle to 4 in first-to-1.25. 4 on March 29 00:00 UTC, 4 on March 29 12:00 UTC, 4 on March 29 16:00 UTC, and 4 on March 29, 20:00 UTC. Replacements will be #3 through last place from the arena the no-show player qualified from, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7. March 30 (Round 2) 00:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC: The 4 that advance (1 per time slot) will join the 12 leaderboard candidates (3 each time slot) in a first-to-1.25. Replacements from the leaderboard were discussed above, but replacements from March 29 will be in order from #2-4 from that time slot, and then the highest rated player following* the TD or referee. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7. April 5-6 (Finals) 18:00 UTC: The final four will play for the Championship in a best-of-9 (first-to-2.25) with a maximum of 5 games per day. Games will be rated, anonymous, and 1+7. For all games, pawns promote on the 8th to a 1-point queen, and the en passant and dead king walk modes will be enabled. *following is defined as in the same spectator/game chat as the TD/referee on duty at the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. Players may be disqualified and replaced upon failure to arrive before the 15th minute after the hour of the match time. To find the spectator/game chat that the TD (fourplayerchess) or referee is in, please click their profile in the Variants Server (either through the Archive or friends list) and then click "Observing". Prize Money Disclaimer: Currently pending is a funding of $1000 from chess.com for the 2025 Modern FFA World Champion. Please understand this may take days, weeks, or a month or two to process. The tournament director may refer questions regarding prize money to staff/support. Only one player will be awarded prize money, and that player must agree to use the email directly linked to his/her chess.com account to find the link to the Prize Money when Awarded. Please note that the link may appear in your junk/trash/spam folder, so be sure to check those soon after you win the Championship! A detailed handbook may be organized and updated for this championship; however, as this is currently categorized as a 2025 Event, rules and eligibility may be superseded by the 2025 Event Rulebook ( https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-event-rulebook ), the Competitive Events Policy ( https://www.chess.com/legal/events ), the Fair Play Policy ( https://www.chess.com/legal/fair-play ), or other chess.com community guidelines, each on a case-by-case basis, and Staff/Support may have final authority of a player's eligibility! The previous FFA championship appeared to have positive feedback; however, the upcoming championship is subject to some possible changes and minor modifications. Discussion feedback may be taken into consideration but is not guaranteed. Staff and Variants Admins may be referees.Some additional rules to be more clear: Etiquette Rules1a.- Please do not resign at the start of the game because of your color or who you think your opposite is. 1b.- (Prelims + Finals) You are encouraged to abort the game if you see an incorrect ruleset, and you will not be penalized. 2.- Do not stall. Waiting 5 minutes before flagging or claiming win benefits nobody and does not make you look cool either. 5b.- Do not refresh your page multiple times to make the messages “[player color] disconnected” and “[player color] reconnected” spam the chat. 6.- You are allowed to spam arrows and use them appropriately as you please to help you play, but please do not spell out inappropriate words or symbols using arrows. 7.- (Prelims + Finals) Please state in chat if you will need a break (up to 5 minutes max ideally) in-between Game 1 and Game 2 in a round. Do not keep everyone waiting or go offline. 8.- Please do not enable blindfold to taunt your opponents or to reveal your identity. 9.- Do not prearrange/match-fix. Report any prearranged teaming/match-fixing. Upon becoming aware that a player communicates that he is planning to throw to make you win, please report this behavior to the tournament director immediately. Twitch Rules1a.- Streamer Rule - During a game, change your chat type to emote-only, or instruct your chat moderators to delete any messages that suggest moves. 1b.- Enabling a stream delay to counter stream sniping for the duration of the games would be encouraged. 2.- Streamer / Player Rule - During a game, please do not join calls or talk in direct messages with anybody discussing moves. This is blatant cheating, frowned upon, and will lead to your disqualification from the W4PCC. Even if you are muted or have others on the call muted/are not discussing your game. Do not interact with any 3rd parties during your game. 3.- Viewer Rule - In the case that a player streaming W4PCC does not have their chat restricted to emote-only, do NOT under any circumstance suggest moves. In other words, don’t kibitz. 4.- Player / Viewer Rule - Do not attempt to gain an advantage by viewing a player’s stream during your game. In other words, don’t stream snipe. Other rules:If you are qualified via the top two of the arenas or were notified of qualification via leaderboard selection or alternative selection, you must refrain from playing other Qualifier Arenas for this Championship. Failure to do so may result in forfeiture of qualification for the arena previously selected from. As a standard, the 1st offense is a disqualification from arena qualified in 2nd offense is a disqualification from the 2025 FFA W4PCC itself.Failure to read and adhere to any applicable rules may result in disciplinary action, up to and including disqualification, and violation of core policies (Fair Play, Community Guidelines, etc.) during this tournament may result in account closure. In addition, accounts must have been created 28 days before the start of this tournament (February 19, 2025, or earlier). Furthermore, play-bans, sitewide mutes, and account closures may result in disqualification if in effect during the time of play; chat-bans may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and may not be removed for the convenience of communicating during the matches. Preliminaries and Finals are planned to be broadcasted on https://www.twitch.tv/fourplayerchess . We look forward to seeing you play in the championship! Best of luck to all players trying out

yoooo doys

https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/80451513/6/2 My teammate disconnected on move 2 without warning, so I asked everyone for a draw. They both agreed, which was when I found out that in order to draw, my teammate also has to click the button (which is impossible). How is this fair? Is there any way I can get my points back?

https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/80451513/6/2 My teammate randomly left on move 2, so I asked everyone for a draw. They agreed. Then I found out that my disconnected teammate also has to click the button, which is impossible since he is gone. How is this fair? Is there any way I can get my points back?

Me be like: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

Do you take into consideration which order your opponents make a move? Well, you should! Positioning matters in this variant. First off let's talk about the person sitting in front of you. He is your best friend. Since he's pieces are far away from yours they rarely make contact with yours in the opening. In addition you both have the same enemies on the sides and if any combination happens against an enemy on the side, he is the most likely to help you. You also don't want anything bad to happen to your friend since you are unlikely to be able to join the party and get points from him. And you don't want your enemies to get free points. Next we have the player to the right. He is a backstabber. If any other player checks you or make a move you need to respond to (like trading a piece), he will always be there and try to take advantage of it. However you should not fear him, he should be the one fearing you! If you initiate a trade or create a threat against him, then your best friend are ready to backstab him before he can respond. Whether you want your best friend to get points this way is up to you, but the backstabber should definitely fear you. Finally we have the player to the left. He is your worst enemy. If he creates any check or threat against you there are 2 players after him that could take advantage of it. If you create a threat or check against him he can respond immediately without any other player taking advantage of it, unless they managed to predict your move. It's true the backstabber are the one most likely to gain from this, but you should fear the cause which is your worst enemy instead of the one dealing the damage. Also keep in mind that you want to be able to backstab your worst enemy. Any thoughts on this view of positioning? Obviously the player I called best friend is also an enemy at the end of the day and this is a simplification of the players roles.