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4-Way ChessBROKEN LINK!. Commercial fourhanded chess variant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Oct 3, 2017 12:41 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I like the concept of multi-player chess variants (or ones in which two players each control more than one army, which is how this game is currently played on Game Courier), and perhaps there ought to be more of these. The problem of how to handle the surviving pieces of an army whose king has been captured (if not mated) may be a bit tricky to do in a reasonable way (i.e. in order to make it worthwhile for good players continuing to play out such a game further, at least at times). I think this particular variant seems to solve that problem well enough - if nothing else the variant is well tested and continues to be played, I gather!

My tentative estimates for the piece values in this variant would be: P=1; N=2.5; B=3.25; R=5.75; Q=10 and the fighting value of a K=1.6 (if the first of one team's kings is captured, ostensibly winning an exchange value of 1.6, add to this exchange value a periodically recalculated bonus of [sum of the value of the pieces and pawns in the remainder of that king's army, for as long as any of it remains on the board]x0.8 for virtually immobilizing the remainder of that army, with full value awarded for any virtually immobilized pieces that are subsequently captured); note that naturally the second of a team's kings cannot be allowed to be captured without the loss of the game.