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Hi everyone! This forum will be dedicated to discussing Chaturaji endgames, and especially those in the three-player stage. In Chaturaji, it is highly frequent for one player to be eliminated either right away, or very suddenly in the middlegame. If this happens, especially if they were your opposite or otherwise important for trading, it might be difficult to get your position to an advantage. For instance, in this game we can see that green is at a disadvantage due to blue being eliminated, forcing them to try to get as many trades as possible, even when they may be less then optimum since they can no longer trade with their opposite.     This kind of position is often likely in chaturaji, especially in faster time controls. So how do we avoid them? Unfortunately, the best you can do is try to prevent this by checking say red or yellow at the right time, or, setting up a position that allows you to trade with any of the three players with ease. This is naturally difficult, but by studying your games and openings you can start to improve your performance. (This is the first installment, I will add more later and others can as well, at the moment I don’t have a lot of time to write more).

Hi everyone! This will be the pinned forum for chaturaji puzzles from players' games.

The opening post, my post, will name a Chaturaji player starting with the letter G The next answer will name a player starting with the letter H And so on After Z, you can choose to name a player starting with a number or with the letter A And after A, you'll name a player starting with the letter B And so on Make sure that your answer follows the order and an answer can not be repeated A person should not give 2 consecutive answers with 2 consecutive letters I'll start with GellartGrindelwald Enjoy

Let's play a chaturaji game together in this thread The opening post, my post, will start as red's first move The next answer will post blue's first move The next answer will post yellow's first move The next answer will post green's first move The next answer will post red's second move The next answer will post blue's second move And so on You can NOT change your color during the game Everyone can play, and multiple people can play for the same color during the game Make sure that you check the latest answer and don't miss any move There's no time limit for the game -------------------------------------------------- I'd like to thank SamueleBeckis for his inspirational idea, although some rules of this game are different from his https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/long-term-chaturaji-game-36-hours-move -------------------------------------------------- I'll start with 1.d3 The board updates will be provided to you during the game Enjoy and don't forget to support our club

So, the basic idea here is that we list what we think the best 5 Chaturaji players are all of time! Now you may think "it says that in the title duh^^" that this should be split between fast and slow play type categories but unfortunately for you, I've already thought of that so stop stealing my ideas. First list the top 5 blitz players then separately list the top 5 hyper players, if you feel it's necessary then you may place a player in both lists. Feel free to add notes to your rankings. Here are my top 5 blitz players: 1. VEPOS (VEPOS has maintained high form throughout his whole period of play and held the top place on the leaderboard with a consistency unseen in most variants. He is also the only player to have reached a rating of over 2800 (blitz)) 2. Arseny_Vasily (Arseny was completely dominant when I started playing chaturaji nearly 2 years ago. He reached a rating of 2700 or so but then left for a long period of hiatus after which he was a tad rusty. Still a great player) 3. hest1805 (Hest helped develop Chaturaji as we play it (altering the basic blueprint into a playable online variant) and for a period of time was unbeatable. He still maintains an in depth knowledge of how the game works and his high score was somewhere in the mid 2700s) 4. Suneth (Suneth was (and is) a top Four Player Chess player (as were/are Arseny and hest) and when he dedicated himself to Chaturaji he rapidly became one of the most solid unbeatable opponents possible. Suneth's top rating was somewhere around the 2700 mark) 5. IHaveTheSauce (Sauce was a top player when I started playing and still is do this day which definitely indicates a certain amount of perseverance considering his evident lack of aptitude for the game (Just kidding, don't worry, Sauce😛) he recently crossed the 2700 rating barrier making him one of the all time highest rated players.) So that in my opinion is the list of the best Chaturaji blitz players (I may come back and edit this in the future) Here it is for hyper (bearing in mind I will be talking about Variants Hyper Chaturaji as opposed to the old four player chess version, Hyper fiesta (there are just too many players)): I won't write as much for these guys as this was not intended to be a blog 😁 1. BoxJellyFishChess (was and is a top hyper player, virtually unbeatable and still holds the server high score of 2700+ hyper chaturaji) 2. ChessMasterGS (super quick player with a tendency to troll (I hate dying to trolls -.-) who has maintained a reputation as one of the best hyper players as long as I've known him) 3. Me (😂, I was pretty good at my best, let's admit it.) 4. Soundlord1 (I used to get this fear reaction whenever I played with Soundlord he's genuinely scary lol) 5. TwinTrick (Although Twin hasn't played in a very long time, he was most definitely a force to be reckoned with in the good old days, his high-score, albeit lower than the rest on the list was respectable (he held #1 for some time) and would most certainly be higher if he were still active and accounting for some rating inflation.) Ok so that's it for now, I look forward to seeing your top players list! "People used to laugh at me when I would say "I want to be a comedian", well nobody's laughing now."

Referring to the three main openings of Chaturaji, whose article IM @BoxJellyfishChess wrote(Link- https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-history-on-chess-com-openings-and-trading), I made my own article sharing the advantages and disadvantages of the three openings. 1. The Standard Opening: Advantages:- -Moves the king up to a safe square, guarded by a pawn on the right and two pawns above the king. -Lowers the risk of being checkmated by bishop tricks as it gives the king many squares to move to. -Does defensive playing and all the pieces are together and none of them is hanging. Disadvantages:- -If your opponent plays the Fianchetto opening or the Degenerate opening and you play this opening, there is great chance of losing your bishop to the opponent as shown in the above article. -Sometimes, it may also happen that two bishops may trick you into getting checkmated, like the one mentioned in this article(https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-tactics-for-starters) -You cannot attack or open any piece early. You have to confine yourself in your army. Many people play this opening, but mostly higher rated people play only the degenerate opening or the fianchetto opening. They play this opening only when it is forced(Right-adjacent player plays the degenerate opening). 2.The Fianchetto Opening: Advantages:- -It bring the bishop in control of the whole diagonal. -It can sometimes help you take your top-adjacent player's bishop as shown in the article by @BoxJellyfishChess. -It also has some spaces for the king to depend on in case of attack by opponents. Disadvantages:- -The opening exposes the king as no one is guarding on the right of the king and attacks can trap your king. -Sometimes this opening weakens the kingside and forces you to lose points or trade with loss on your side. -It also sometimes doesn't have space for the king to move when your opposite player doesn't trade bishops with you. Me, Suneth, and many more play this opening. Most hyper stars prefer to play this opening. 3. The Degenerate Opening: Advantages:- -Immediately launches and attack on the top-adjacent player and forces it to either make the degenerate opening(only 1st moves as degenerate, if his/her top-adjacent also plays the degenerate opening) or mostly preferred the standard opening. -Sometimes new players avoid checks and this can help you to capture the opponent's king, make points and give all the freedom to promote easily. -This can also as the fianchetto opening, help you to trade your top-adjacent player's bishop for your knight. Disadvantages:- -Sometimes if your right-adjacent player is opening with his knight, that may cause you losing your bishop for knight(-5 + 3 = -2). -I have tried to play this opening sometimes but failed almost all times as this opening doesn't give my king or pawns on the right side steps to move on to before my bishop gets traded. -In hyper, this opening can make you lose your bishop sometimes since we have to play fast if it is 15 sec or 6 sec, we don't think about the bishop and act hastily. -Before the bishop gets traded, it is very difficult to trade or gain something. This makes you with bulk material that in the endgame, you have to, forcibly trade for less points(Ex- Knight for 2 pawns[-3 + 2 = -1] or even 1 pawn sometimes!) Terk/Elena, GellartGrindelwald, etc. play this opening and have been quite successful(I wonder how?)

What are you listening to now? 🎵 What kind of music do you enjoy? Tell us what you enjoy, and we'll know more about you Let's make our club more lively and friendly You can only publish up to 2 posts in this thread every day, and you can share up to 2 videos in a post (in Brasilia Time UTC-3:00) I'll start first 🌸 Enjoy

TEAMING: Many newcomers to 4-Player Chess are misled by the "FFA rules". The name "Free-For-All" and the rules against cooperation in chat and prearranged cooperation make people think that teaming is not allowed. But every strong standard 4PC knows that teaming with the opposite to checkmate one is the best strategy. The reason that opposite cooperation is so effective lies in the glicko2 rating system, which will play a large part in many things that I will discuss in this post. This is how glicko2 works for FFA (this will not account for glicko rd, the value that represents how accurate your rating is and controls how much your rating goes up or down): At the start of the game, a value correlating to the relation between your rating and the average rating of the other players is computed (if your rating is higher, this value will be lower. If the opponents' average rating is higher, this value will be higher). Let's call this x. 1st place: you gain 3x points of rating 2nd place: you gain xy points of rating 3rd place: you lose xy points of rating 4th place: you lose 3x points of rating where y is a constant which gets lower as the average rating of all players gets higher. In other words, for high-rated games, 2nd and 3rd will both basically not have any changes. As you can see, eliminating someone and preventing yourself from getting 4th is pretty advantageous. However, this has been about standard 4-Player Chess, where you and your opposite can easily and quickly destroy a flank if they do not cooperate as well. In chaturaji, cooperation almost never means directly removing someone from the game; usually, one player helps another get points or preserve pieces that would otherwise be captured. I will now discuss the topic of when teaming in chaturaji is correct. First of all, let's introduce a concept: when you play a move that has little or no benefit to yourself, but highly inconveniences another player. Let's call this a spite move, as they are often made just based on emotions. The First Law of Chaturaji Dynamics states that advantages and disadvantages can be transformed and transferred to other players, but they can never be destroyed. Therefore, all spite moves must also help another player and are therefore cooperation moves to an extent. Now without further ado, time to discuss teaming! The 4-Player Stage: There are two ways to view teaming: 1. Minimize your chances of getting last. 2. Maximize your chances of getting 1st. Personally, I think 1. is boring and stupid; it often involves "playing for 2nd" and blatantly helping the opposite. Let me refer again to the laws of Chaturaji Dynamics: each chaturaji game starts out with an equilibrium of advantage - that is, no one has an advantage. Trading rooks or knights does not disrupt the equilibrium, because the traders lost valuable pieces in exchange for the points. Trading bishops gives an edge to the traders and a disadvantage to the ones not trading. If you are trying to minimize your chances of getting last, you try to put as much distance from yourself to the player with the most disadvantage. Play spite moves against them and team on them and essentially skew the equilibrium as much as possible while maintaining your middling position (there will be one player who benefits greatly from your targeting, and one who suffers greatly, and you and the other player will not have advantages or disadvantages). If you play to maximize your winning chances, you try to preserve the equilibrium as much as possible unless you are benefiting yourself most (if you are the player who is benefiting greatly). This means targeting the player with the most advantage and playing spite moves against them; if no one has a big advantage, you just play chess. No need to sabotage anyone unless it benefits you. As I mentioned, I prefer and recommend maximizing winning chances; I believe it works better, and people will definitely get mad at you less if you play only for yourself. Let's apply these strategies to the following example: red to move (note: this position is not actually red to move, I skipped a move for green to make it more instructive) First of all, assume red takes Bxg7. Should blue team and take the rook? Obviously yes, since it benefits him. Yellow will capture the bishop and blue will have gotten free rook. Both ways of playing support this. Now let's move on to a more complicated thought experiment: What should red do? He can take the bishop, teaming on yellow, or play Nc5+, teaming on blue, or a waiting move like Kb1, or he can completely stop teaming with d4. Let's analyze the options. If red wants to minimize chances of being last, teaming on yellow makes a lot of sense. Teaming on blue is rather silly; interference from green will prevent red from taking the bishop and possibly make him lose the knight as well. Note that green should definitely check red; he must limit everyone's points if he wants to stay in the game. He can also push his 1st rank pawn, which puts red in the same position that yellow is now - getting teamed on. So what do you play if you want to maximize winning chances? The threat of d1 from green pretty much rules out Kb1 as well; after Kb1 Rxh8 Bxh8 (if Bxb2, it's just a worse version of teaming on yellow in the first place) d1 Bxh8 Kb8 f6 1xc2, and now green basically takes all of red's pawns. d4 does preserve equilibrium, but it's clearly not worth it. d2 followed by d1 for green (with ideas like Be4) is very annoying for red, and you waste two moves giving green a pawn if you want to trade bishops. This is a trick question you should also take the bishop to maximize winning chances; tempi are very significant in chaturaji (you might be wondering how red and yellow, who move before blue and green, are in such a bad spot. Red pushed his rook pawn, even though his knight was going to block it anyway. Yellow spent two moves moving the knight for no reason and blocking his rook pawn. These are by no means useless moves, but red and yellow are in pretty bad positions here; yellow dropping a piece and red's pawn structure getting destroyed), and wasting time preventing blue from getting a rook is not a good idea. But should blue take yellow's rook if he wants to maximize winning chances? Of course, he does. Half of the time, yellow takes red and gives him the advantage, which is always good. The other half, red gets an "advantage" but it's not actually an advantage because green demolishes him. This is more of an equilibrium than if blue decided not to take the rook and let red and yellow trade bishops and red take his bishop for his knight. That's the other reason why blue must take the rook; he wants to avoid Nc5+ as soon as he can, and that means Kb8 after the rook trade (or free rook, as the case may be). Now imagine that green's 2nd and 1st rank pawns are moved back one square. Now, d4 is good for red; the key difference here is that after the rook trade, red can immediately trade his knight for blue's bishop (green cannot interfere in time unless he sacrifices a pawn, which most people will not do). This gives you a slight advantage, which is much more preferable than just killing yellow off in my opinion. Note that I have analyzed this example as if all players were strong players. Low-rated people like flashy forcing moves, and will check and capture and threaten as much as they can. Always expect inexperienced players to team. The 3-Player Stage: This is fairly straightforward. Due to how the rating system works, 2nd = 3rd = basically nothing, and the only thing you should be doing is maximizing your chances of getting 1st. In other words, don't help anyone, and if someone is too strong, team with the other player to balance it out. The 3-player stage is all about balance. Do not liquidate into the 2-Player stage unless you are winning (if you are confident in your skills, equality is a win). Mate Teaming in The 4-Player Stage: I have only been talking about "soft teaming", which results in an imbalance of points/pieces and one player having an advantage, and one player having a disadvantage. There is another type of teaming which occurs at the beginning of the game: you cooperate with your opposite to eliminate a flank just like in standard. This only works as red and yellow with a decent opposite. Here are the two main ones: In both, blue and green played normal openings. In both, the opposite cannot save the one being mated. In both, the cost to red and yellow is minimal, and they have no chance of getting 4th. So this seems great, right? Theoretically, yes. However, we are not robots. What is objectively the best move is not always the move you should make. Now for the second part of the post: ETIQUETTE/COURTESY: 4-Player Chess has been around much longer than the variants server and therefore has more developed ideas of "dignity" and "courtesy" and "etiquette" and "not being a ****"... etc. Don't betray your opposite before the 3-Player Stage in standard FFA. Don't target people, anywhere (this is not in any of the rules). Follow your higher-rated partner's arrows in teams. Resign, don't abandon games and waste people's time. There are many of these guidelines which aren't often in your best interest, but they keep the game friendly for others. I guess here is a good time to refer back to the stupid rule they teach you in school as an attempt (not a successful attempt lmao) to stop bullying: Treat others the way you want to be treated. This may seem really stupid for a competitive game, but think of it this way: you are about to do X, which would be really inconvenient for an opponent. If someone did X to you, would you objectively think "Wow, well played / Damn, that was silly of me" or "WTF is this degenerate trash? BLOCKED REPORTED... etc." Sure, going for mate on blue and green with your opposite on move 3 will get good results, but everyone will block you and you will have no one left to play with but other people who play like that. Also do not randomly or frequently make spite moves; they are annoying and people will block you (if only you could block people in school xD). I don't care if it's "objectively the best". No one gives a damn about someone's chaturaji blitz rating on the chess.com variants server. It's all for fun, so don't spoil the fun by being a bot. Of course, there are some grey areas when it comes to courtesy. Imagine you, as red, play b3 - Bb2 on the first two moves, and your opposite, yellow, plays g6 - Bg7 on the first two moves. Now, this may seem a little bit ridiculous, but there's an ongoing debate in 4-Player Chess hyper circles about whether or not you take the free 10 points. After all, if everyone agrees to not take the free bishop, then yellow and green aren't so much worse than red and blue (right now, yellow and green can be forced to play standard based on what the preceding players play (and blue to a lesser extent)), and a more balanced game is better for everyone. I generally think that you should take the free bishop; encouraging bad habits like hanging a bishop will end up costing that player a lot more than just one game if he sees a strong player not taking the bishop and expects everyone else to do the same. Remember that this is a hyper argument; of course, there is no question about this in blitz. A less extreme argument is mouse slips (this, on the other hand, is only about the slower time controls). I'm not going to tell you what to do about mouse slips; everyone has their own courtesy policies. In general, the more obvious the blunder is, the more likely it is a mouse slip, and the stronger the player is, the more likely it is a mouse slip. I don't like to exercise leniency in mouse slips, because people often like to say "oops my mouse slipped" when they don't want to admit to making a mistake. I would only spare the mouse slip if the blunderer in question was a strong player (use your own judgment on what strong means), and the blunder in question was a hanging piece. I also will not advocate leniency for anything that was not beyond the control of the blundering player. Again, I don't like encouraging bad habits; if someone blunders, they should be punished. Most 2v1s are easily preventable if you are careful and avoid trading into multiple people at once (early-mate 2v1s are not easy to prevent, which is why I discourage people from using this strategy). If you don't punish people's mistakes, they will never learn. There are often scenarios where you can choose places: for example, if you have a rook and king against two kings, you can choose who gets 2nd place. If someone is mated with 20 points, another person is mated with 0 points, you have 1 point, and the other player has 16 points, you can choose who is 1st. As I said, this is quite common; there are countless scenarios. Generally, I always try to gift a higher place to higher-rated players, unless they played really badly. Everyone does poorly from time to time (usually as a result of spite moves made by weak players). Here's an example: https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturaji/game/18284969 This is Oyeyif's (hopefully not) last game. I'm not gonna provide in-depth analysis since that isn't the point of this post (I will say though, fun fact: blue could've won sometime from move 40 to 60 by sacrificing his king onto yellow's king. If yellow takes, then green cannot pass blue in points, and yellow cannot run with his king forever. Green had to cut off the two kings with a rook at all times). As you can see, 15.y and 16.y made yellow lose a knight, although this is by no means an obvious blunder; 15.g was a pretty brilliant move (remember what I said earlier, about how weaker players always love forcing moves? props to green for taking advantage of the psychological element of this game), can't blame yellow for not expecting that. And of course, 20.r was silly, allowing a double-check which cost yellow two pawns. And then red decided to play for 3rd and take a rook (yellow's rook essentially) for a king. Basically, yellow got pretty unlucky because red was kinda trolling him and green was playing really well. Yellow didn't play anything terrible and didn't deserve last, so green gifted him 3rd. A really great finishing game; you will be missed, Oyeyif. These are just my opinions. Unlike my previous post and the teaming half of this post, the courtesy half of this post was pretty much completely subjective. Feel free to disagree . Questions? Comments? Stories about teaming, degeneracy, and win-gifting?

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Welcome to The Chaturaji Masters' Club Community!We have some rules for you to observe. Remember that this is a private forum with people of all ages and backgrounds from all over the world. General rules: - Be nice. Read the rules carefully and understand what is not allowed: Directing anger at a specific person or group without the ability for that person or group to fight back, direct confrontation with the intent to publicly embarrass or defame one's character/beliefs/opinions, derogatory comments, etc.- It is assumed that political, ideological or religious beliefs vary greatly among the members of this group. Passing references or memes on these and similar topics is fine, but keep it light.- Broadcast or video promotion should be limited to 4PC Chaturaji and Classic Chess.- If you have a problem with another member, send a private message to one of our moderators (Club Admins). Do not post:- Adult content in written or image form, including any sexually explicit or suggestive content, nudity, gore or bloody, or references to hard drugs.- Any discriminatory language, action or image (racist, sexist, xenophobic, mustachioed).- Content of private conversations without the consent of all parties involved.- Any information about another user or group that is obviously intended to remain private. This may include names, images, email addresses, online profiles, age, nationality, preferences, etc. If you inadvertently discover this kind of information, respectfully ignore it.- Excessive vulgarity or profanity.- Accusations that lack merit and are intended to slander, or messages intended to anger others.- Repeated messages, pointless posts, excessive use of characters or emoji, or any other form of spam.- Avoid confusing messages within the forum, look for another means more appropriate to its purpose.- Avoid Excessive Capital Letters in your communication.- Avoid Excessive mentions '@'. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ¡Bienvenido a la comunidad del Club de Maestros de Chaturaji!Tenemos algunas reglas para que las observes. Recuerda que este es un foro privado con personas de todas las edades y procedencias de todo el mundo. Reglas generales: - Se bueno. Lea las reglas cuidadosamente y comprenda lo que no está permitido: Dirigir la ira a una persona o grupo específico sin que esa persona o grupo tenga la capacidad de contraatacar, confrontación directa con la intención de avergonzar o difamar públicamente el carácter/creencias/opiniones de uno, comentarios despectivos, etc.- Se supone que las creencias políticas, ideológicas o religiosas varían mucho entre los miembros de este grupo. Pasar referencias o memes sobre estos y otros temas similares está bien, pero mantenlo ligero.- La promoción de transmisión o video debe limitarse a 4PC Chaturaji y Classic Chess.- Si tienes un problema con otro miembro, envía un mensaje privado a uno de nuestros moderadores (Club de Administradores). No publicar:- Contenido para adultos en forma escrita o de imagen, incluido cualquier contenido sexualmente explícito o sugerente, desnudez, gore o sangriento, o referencias a drogas duras.- Cualquier lenguaje, acción o imagen discriminatoria (racista, sexista, xenófoba, bigotuda).- Contenido de conversaciones privadas sin el consentimiento de todas las partes involucradas.- Cualquier información sobre otro usuario o grupo que obviamente tiene la intención de permanecer privada. Esto puede incluir nombres, imágenes, direcciones de correo electrónico, perfiles en línea, edad, nacionalidad, preferencias, etc. Si descubre este tipo de información sin darse cuenta, ignórelo respetuosamente.- Excesiva vulgaridad o blasfemia.- Acusaciones que carezcan de mérito y tengan la intención de calumniar, o mensajes destinados a enojar a otros.- Mensajes repetidos, publicaciones sin sentido, uso excesivo de caracteres o emoji, o cualquier otra forma de spam.- Evitar mensajes confusos dentro del foro, buscar otro medio más adecuado a su finalidad.- Evite el uso excesivo de mayúsculas en su comunicación.- Evitar Excesivas menciones '@'. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Puzzle1.- DAILY CHATURAJI PUZZLES ARCHIVE | @IHaveTheSauce | 25-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/daily-chaturaji-puzzle-12.-Puzzles? | @100roundy | 19-02-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/puzzles-14413.-A Quick Question -- Who Do You Prefer Here? | @xXMagolorXx | 11-11-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/a-quick-question-who-do-you-prefer-here ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Epic Game 1.- Game of the Week! | @Max_Wolfe | 19-03-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/game-of-the-week-942.-Doesn't this look epic? | @TheWitchKing13 | 12-03-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/doesnt-this-look-epic ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Game Analysis1.- KINDLY SEE THESE 2 GAMES AND DECIDE | @VEPOS | 23-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/kindly-see-these-2-games-and-decide2.- Is This a Blunder? | @ChessMasterGS | 10-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/is-this-a-blunder3.-Teaming & Cheating. Post suspicious play here. | @Max_Wolfe | 04-02-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/teaming-cheating-post-suspicious-play-here4.-Chaturaji Journal チャトラジ 新聞 – the newspaper for the breaking news and latest analyses on Chaturaji | @Terkenal | 13-05-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-journal-tiyatorazi-xin-wen-the-newspaper-for-the-breaking-news-and-latest-analyses-on-chaturaji5.-Teaming and Courtesy in Chaturaji | @BoxJellyfishChess | 03-05-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/teaming-and-courtesy-in-chaturaji▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ History1.- Chaturaji: History on Chess.com, Openings, and Trading | @BoxJellyfishChess | 02-05-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-history-on-chess-com-openings-and-trading 2.-⚔️ Chaturaji ⛵📜 History V/S Modernity 📈statistics 🛡️Poll: | @martinaxo | 13-05-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-history-v-s-modernity-statistics-poll ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Politics1.-LET US PRAY FOR ARSENY | @VEPOS | 24-02-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/let-us-pray-for-arseny2.-Just look at this | @100roundy | 21-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/just-look-at-this-1 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Tournaments1.-Stuff | @100roundy | 19-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/stuff-67 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Achievements and Awards1.- VEPOS First Place!! | @100roundy | 21-02-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vepos-first-place ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Articles of interest Social Media1.-Reminder -- I made a discord for chaturaji enthusiasts | @xXMagolorXx | 25-01-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/reminder-i-made-a-discord-for-chaturaji-enthusiastsPsychology in Chaturaji1.-About recent events | @Snezhinka | 23-04-2022https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/about-recent-events2.-Dragging us down with them | @oatey | 16-12-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/dragging-us-down-with-themOther Articles1.-Tell Me if this is Accurate | @ChessMasterGS | 15-11-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/tell-me-if-this-is-accurate2.-I don't think it is possible to get higher than 3000 | @ChessMasterGS | 19-11-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/i-dont-think-it-is-possible-to-get-higher-than-30003.-Get Ready for Solo Chaturaji (or not) | @ChessMasterGS | 19-11-2021https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/get-ready-for-solo-chaturaji

As promised my own post here. I was thinking whether to bother this club with it by my own initiative; but since I got an invitation I just had to. Feel free to post your opinion. I am talking here from a purely mathematical perspective on the game.My hypothesis: Player #4 is doomed and there is a strategy ('soft teaming') for player 1 and 3 that benefits them egoistically to cooperate. I am not even sure that player 2 can help against that even if he intends to disrupt; when in fact he benefits by doing nothing. In this theory all players are of equal strenght and (as in mathematical models) are smart players focussed solely for their own gain, aka top 2.First I will explain the strategy, then I will point out why I think it is mathematically correct/right. It starts with player #1 (red) moving the kings pawn and player #3 the knight pawn.Case 1: player #4 (green) moves 1. ... g2-f2It does not matter what blue plays, as red can check blue to protect yellow. And he should do it to make sure his strategy works (= even if blue wants to disrupt, he cannot). Next move looks like thisThe key point is yellows check. Greens King is in a mating net already, which will be finished by yellows knight move. Reds next move should be Nc3 (does not matter which moves blue played) to solidify his soft teaming with yellow by a)not fucking him up and b)protecting him from blue just in case. Green can choose which player he gives his king to, but RED & YELLOW took out blue without any risk (no backstabbing)Case 2: Green plays f3-f2. Position after first moves isHere I have to "force" blue to play the bishops pawn. At the same time, from a rational point of view, as red threatens Bd2 it kinda does not really makes sense to play otherwise, right? Here is my point. Green is to move. Again yellows pawn push is the key. Green is to move, but he is fucked anyway. Also, there is no worries for red or yellow to be backstabbed anyway, since the next move the position will look like thisEven IF blue intends to disrupt the strategy, green is still mated as red can save blue, and has 0 reasons not to.Case 3: Green plays g4-f4I could not find a way to mate Green here, though in my game it seemed counter-intuitive to play that way for Green. Certainly he will have a rough game, whereas red and yellow did not diminish their chances... But to reinstate my point, there is also this possible setup, which could be really fool-proof Green-killerwith the point beeing the following positionIf King moves, then red can still give check to make sure blue does not screw with yellow. In the end Green is mated, or has to play 1. ... g4-f4 again which is a huge disadvantage...Even if one of the players will need to part with a bishop there (though I did not even saw a way how Green could even make a dilemma out of it, like moving the king to a square where both yellow and red could take but should consider not taking at all) - I think it is still the best way to proceed. For sure you will be top 3 players, and in a perfect game (meaning smart equal players) it is a 3-way so beeing a piece down won't give you less chances. Like in some scenarios the best path is to soft team between the weak players against the strongest, therefore is must be (in theory) up to chance; but practically around equal chances in the resulting 3-way fight. Aka every single living player benefits by mating green at the start. Which in terms, if it should be that way, results in a game of luck (not to be #4)As a methematician, just the fact of "they are to dumb to think that way", and simply the unlikeliness of my opponents to play that way does not solve the problem for me. It goes down to basically: in theory you are dead as green, but you can roll the dice whether your opponents cannot play the game properly. When playing properly means kick out GREEN and then share the points (on average 2nd placement after all)

I'm assuming that many of you don't have a 4PC background. https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess this is the 4-Player Chess server, where Chaturaji was first added on chess.com. Note that I will call the ships from the variants server "rooks" because that's what they are. First of all, this is what the chaturaji variant was historically: The cannon is a rook, and the boat is an alfil (moves diagonally two squares in any direction, jumping over anything in between). There is a weird rule called boat triumph, but that's not important. @dirtguylawra added chaturaji to chess.com, adapted because 4-Player Chess did not have boats or cannons. The first to be added was Chaturaji BNRK, which is exactly what it sounds like: our current chaturaji position with rooks and bishops switched. It also did not have capture-the-king or 3 point checkmate. BNRK was much sharper than our current position. It was discovered that in Teams mode (red and yellow work against blue and green, you lose if your teammate gets checkmated. Your rating change is based on your "team rating" vs. your opponents' "team rating", which is the average of you and your partner's ratings weighted 2/3 towards the higher-rated teammate.) red and yellow had a forced win, so Chaturaji RNBK was added as well. This is the same starting position as the chaturaji we have in variants server, but still without 3 pt mate and capture-the-king. Then @hest1805 had the idea to add 3 pt mate and capture-the-king (and also added alternative teams (red and green vs yellow and blue). Now we have the same chaturaji we play in variants server, but this is default as 1/4|0 hyper time control and called Chaturaji Hyper Fiesta. Hyper fiesta was, and still is, by far the most popular variant on 4-Player Chess. There is a monthly fiesta arena which lasts a week, and regular weekly arenas as well. Now I will discuss the evolution of openings in hyper fiesta (which are the same in 1|5 chaturaji, obviously). There are three openings that make sense: 1. The standard opening: This opening was the first "mainline" of hyper fiesta, emphasizing a rapid attack on the left. As red, I cannot recommend this opening, as green can easily trade off his knight for your bishop. In blitz, the standard opening only makes sense when it is necessary to avoid mate (if your right plays the degenerate opening, or your opposite and your right both play the fianchetto opening, or if your right is a known degenerate player and plays fianchetto opening). In hyper, it is the only opening where you can premove. 2. The Fianchetto Opening: Though this setup is credited to me in 4PC circles, I did not create this system. The first person I saw playing this was @JCrossover08 , now @nuts_yci . I merely popularized it. The best-case scenario is much better than the standard system; you can often trade your knight for the left's bishop or rook, and you can trade bishops with your opposite if they are a decent player (the whole point of this system is to facilitate bishop trades. Bishops are trash overpriced pieces; they are worse than knights on this board (knights have double-checking potential) and yet they are worth as much as rooks. If you trade bishops with your opposite and the other two players do not, you will have a hard time losing.). This is the current mainline for strong players in hyper fiesta. 3. The Degenerate Opening This has been around since the creation of hyper fiesta, possibly popularized by @e4bc4qh5qf7 . It's commonly associated with degeneracy because back when the Standard Opening was the mainline, this was pretty effective at catching players off-guard and killing them, but it wasn't a good strategy because the other two players would trade rooks while you killed your left, and you would get 3rd place. Now that Fianchetto is mainstream, this isn't a bad strategy anymore. Killing your left means that you will not get last, and it almost always also means that you will not get 3rd, because you will trade bishops with your opposite, and the other player will not. The other pros and cons are the same as the fianchetto opening. I would say this is probably the best choice for hyper chaturaji on the variants server (if you care about your reputation, do not try this in the 4-Player Chess server as it is associated with degeneracy and people may get mad at you). However, in blitz, there is one other consideration: As you can see, red's king position is weakened by the king-pawn push, which makes green's attack stronger. Red has wasted a few moves trading off his bishop, and now he can't comfortably make his king safer. You may ask "What is the difference between this and fianchetto, where red will often push d3 anyway?" The main issue with the Degenerate Opening is that you waste 3-4 moves developing a piece and trading it right at the start of the game, leaving your position very vulnerable. If you change up the move order, it's just fianchetto with extra steps (literally, you use 2 bishop moves to fianchetto and play b3 anyway). In blitz, where the chance to eliminate the left immediately is very slim, I don't think this setup is a good idea. Basically, I still think fianchetto is the best opening (as long as you don't get mated in a few moves). In hyper fiesta, the idea is to trade anything as much as possible. Obviously, this isn't a great idea in blitz. So how should you trade in chaturaji blitz? Here is what I have gathered so far: Note that if you trade a rook for a bishop, but also win a knight, that is not a trade. That is trading up, and is almost always good. Pawns: Do not trade just for the sake of trading. If you are attacking your left, it is fine, or if it facilitates a good trade, etc. If you play well, you will probably be able to promote pawns towards the end of the game, so trading them for 1 pt isn't great. Still, I don't think you should waste time avoiding pawn trades. Knights: Sadly, knight trades are fine. If you cannot trade your knight for a bishop or rook in the foreseeable future, trading knights is good. Knights used to be untradable with the 5 pt double-check (and 20 pt triple-check), but for some reason, they made changed it to freaking 1 pt double-check. I'm not going to turn this post into a 10-page rant about 1-pt double-check, which makes the game dull and less skill-oriented. MOVING ON. As I was saying, trading knights is fine unless you can trade up with them. Naturally, you should never trade rooks or bishops for knights. Bishops: I mentioned this already, but bishops are trash pieces which are not worth 5 points; always trade if possible. Still, I don't think you should ever trade them for a knight. Trading for a rook is obviously great. Rooks: In the early stage of the game, trading your first rook is fine; they don't do anything else with all those pawns and knights getting in the way. Once the position is clearing up, and your rook can start harassing kings and loose pieces, you need to have a good reason to trade. As for trading rooks with bishops, the only acceptable reason is "I will win on points" or "Otherwise I will lose on points". Kings: If you do maths and you win no matter what after giving your king for material, then sure. Always expect the remaining players to trade as much as possible, because they will. Do not sacrifice your king if you do not have a guaranteed win, unless the only alternative is worse. Anyway, that's my pointless information landslide on chaturaji. I'm not gonna include anything about strategy in general, because I'm bored and I want to do something else lmao Thoughts? Corrections? 10-page long digressions about why 5 pt double-check is better than 1-pt double-check?

As you get to a higher rating, you don't gain as much points. If have too high of a rating difference I feel like the added points will be 0. If people try to become higher rated, they will take points from other people. In that case, there is a limited amount of points. And therefore peopel can grow faster to 3000 rating.

SharkBaitHooHaHaHah Jan 29, 2023, 12:05 PM       Chaturaji is a popular board game originating from India. It is believed to have been played as early as the 10th century and is a variation of the classic game of chess. The goal of the game is to capture all of your opponent's pieces or to put them in a position where they cannot move. Chaturaji is known for its complexity, as it requires players to not only consider their own moves but also those of their opponents. This makes Chaturaji a challenging game that requires strategy and tactics to master.     Chaturaji, also known as "Four-Player Chess," is a popular board game originating from India. It is believed to have been played as early as the 10th century and is a variation of the classic game of chess. Chaturaji, also known as Four-Player Chess (FC), is a popular board game originating from India. It is believed to have been played as early as the 10th century and is a variation of the classic game of chess. Chaturaji is a board game originating from India that is similar to chess. It was invented around the year 1000 and is still popular today.    Chaturaji is a board game with a rich history that has captured the imagination of players for centuries. The game has been played in India, Iran, and Russia and is popular around the world. It can be played by both experienced players and beginners alike because it's easy to learn and difficult to master.    Over the centuries, Chaturaji has gained popularity and has been played by royalty and commoners alike. It was also played as a demonstration sport at the World Mind Sports Games in 2008 and is played in various countries around the world, including India, Iran, and Russia.    Although the popularity of Chaturaji is significantly low, it has been played by royalty and commoners alike for centuries. It was also played as a demonstration sport at the World Mind Sports Games in 2008 and is now played in various countries around the world, including India, Iran, and Russia.    In recent years, Chaturaji has experienced a resurgence in popularity due to its inclusion in online gaming platforms and mobile apps. This has made the game more accessible to players all over the world and has helped to spread its popularity even further.

When i try to go to this club it says there is an error. Is this just me or is it the same to all of you? Our Experts' Branch: https://www.chess.com/club/the-chaturaji-experts-official-club

Hello everybody. I haven't been playing Chaturaji in a while. However, I am asking, is there theory or any kind of study such as openings in Chaturaji?

Hello! I have a little issue with my board and I can't find a solution to it.As you can see, pieces are upside down. it makes me DIZZY to play like this. I'd rather be using this setting! But i can't seem to find the way to get it back to normal. Can anyway please give me a hand? Thanks in advance!

Why I thought it was for February 14th:

Hi, may I suggest, that the bishop should be categorized 4 points insteaf of 5. This woud be more like it's real applicable value! Greetings, ferdinator344.