Free For All

**Free For All (FFA** for short**)** is the most common main variant in 4 Player Chess.

## Rules

The goal is to finish with the most points of any player. Points may be earned in the following ways:
Checkmating an opponent: +20 points • Stalemating yourself +20 • Capturing active (colored) pieces:    Pawns +1,  1-point Queens +1    Knights +3, Bishops +5, Rooks +5, Queens +9,    Kings +20,   Spare kings +3 • Checking two players simultaneously: +1,. Checking three players simultaneously: +5

Pawns will promote to a 1-point queen on your 8th rank (usually)

Pieces become “dead” (grey) when a player is eliminated. Capturing dead pieces does not award any points.

Gameplay begins with the Red player. Clockwise move order: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green.

The game is finished when three players have been eliminated.

When a player resigns or times out, their army will become “dead” but their King remains "live" and will continue to move at random until checkmated or stalemated. Points for stalemated resigned kings are shared.

The last remaining player will be given +20 for each live king (except his own) left on the board.

In case of insufficient material, 3-fold repetition or the 50-move rule, the remaining players receive +10 points each.

Total points do not directly affect rating calculations, only final placement does.

If a resign (or timeout) occurs before all players have made at least 3 moves and no one has points yet, and the player that resigned wasn't in check, the game will be aborted and he or she will lose rating. (For some variants and bullet games: first move only.)

A disconnected player has 60 seconds to reconnect before being forfeit on time.

**IMPORTANT:** Players must think independently. It is prohibited to suggest moves and/or coordinate attacks using chat (or other means of communication) during FFA 4PC games! Also players may not discuss blunders which can be fixed, but may discuss what already happened and cannot be undone. If you break this rule you will be chat-banned or even play-banned! Examples of prohibited phrases: "Check red", "Let's attack green together", "I won't take your queen", "Mind your rook", "Protect your pawn", "Mate in 2", "Resign!", "Don't resign". You can use these and similar phrases in chat after a game, but not during a game.

**IMPORTANT:** It is prohibited to ask other players to give you points! For example: "Give me 7 points and I will resign.", "Just 5 points, ple-e-ease!" You can be chat-banned for doing this.

Note: these rules do not apply to Diplomacy Games.

## Strategies

The goal is NOT to checkmate first. The goal is NOT to be the last player standing. The goal is NOT to have as many points as possible. The goal is to have more points than your opponents at the end of the game. It doesn't matter if you have 1 more point or 20 more points than the player player behind you. Additionally the game is not just about 1st place. If you have no chance to get 1st you can still try to get 2nd or 3rd. With this in mind, let's get to the tips:

1: **Never resign!** I am not talking about claiming victory by resigning which will be covered later. Premature resignation is far too common in this variant. If you lose a lot of material early, then there is still a chance for a comeback. And I am not talking about merely losing a queen here. You can lose a queen, rook and 2 bishops and I would still argue that it is too early to resign. Even a position where you are mate in 1 is too early to resign. The thing is that to get as high place as possible you should try to get as many points as possible. It is very pessimistic if you think it is impossible for you to get at least 1 more point before you are checkmated. When it comes to positions where you are mate in 1 you should know that there are more players than the player that tries to checkmate you. The other players may want to prevent him from mating you or let him pay for it by attacking that player. When it gets to that players turn he might choose to prioritize something other than mating you (such as king safety or saving his queen).

2. **Don't trade early!** The thing about trades is that if you trade a piece with another player, then you both lose a piece and the other players will have one more piece than you. In other words a trade is bad for both players involved. While the goal of the game is to get points, those points will come if you stay in the game for a long time. I'm not going to discuss to what extent you should avoid trades here, I just want you to know that trades are generally bad for you.

3. **Watch out for the diagonals!** The bishops are a scary piece in this variant. Their worth about the same as a rook. One mistake many beginners do in this variant is to develop their bishops towards the centre and leave the pawn in front of their knight undefended. Another mistake many do is to leave themselves exposed to a check along a diagonal. You need to watch out for that and the typical way to deal with it is to block the diagonal with a pawn or develop your bishop on that diagonal yourself.

4. **See checks as threats!** When a player is in check he must respond to the check and while doing this other players can try to take advantage of this by for example attacking a queen or capture a piece without giving the player a chance to recapture. This is especially true for checks by the player to your left, since there are 2 players after him that can take advantage of the check. So you should really try to avoid checks by him.

5. **Claim win (victory by resignation) -** If there are only 2 players left and your ahead by at least 21 points, then you can just resign and win the game (The button should say "Claim Win"). You should use this opportunity whenever you can. It is in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

### Your best friend, backstabber and worst enemy

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.

Source: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/beginner-tips-and-fundamentals

Sample FFA game (2019 rules): https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess?g=1434703