First of all, this article was written by @BoxJellyfishChess so I want to thank him because so you can read it and learn from it.
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?
First of all, this article was written by @BoxJellyfishChess so I want to thank him because so you can read it and learn from it.
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?
Original article : https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-history-on-chess-com-openings-and-trading