Players | 4 |
---|---|
Setup time | 2 minutes |
Playing time | 30-90 minutes |
Random chance | None |
Age range | any |
Skills required | Chess strategy |
Forchess is a four-player chess variant developed by T. K. Rogers, an American engineer. It uses one standard chessboard and two sets of standard pieces.
Forchess was developed around the year 1975. Its inventor T. K. Rogers wanted to create a pure strategy game with the social dynamic of card games like Bridge. Rogers believed in the educational merits of chess and felt that making the game a more popular social activity would benefit society.
Rogers wanted the game to use only standard pieces and a standard board so that everything necessary to play would be readily available. He also did not want to severely limit the number of pieces each player had.
In 1992, Rogers published the instruction set as a 64-page booklet Forchess: The Ultimate Social Game, designed to fit in a shirt pocket. The booklet also contained strategies for playing the game and a new technique invented by Rogers for analyzing both chess and Forchess games. He called it influence indicator.
In 1996, Rogers posted a free instruction set on the then newly founded Intuitor website. He simultaneously began distributing thousands of free instruction brochures to schools and colleges.
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
8 | K | R | N | P | P | B | R | K | 8 |
7 | R | Q | B | P | P | N | Q | R | 7 |
6 | B | N | P | P | B | N | 6 | ||
5 | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | 5 |
4 | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | 4 |
3 | N | B | P | P | N | B | 3 | ||
2 | R | Q | N | P | P | B | Q | R | 2 |
1 | K | R | B | P | P | N | R | K | 1 |
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
The game is played by four people in teams of two. At the outset, each player controls an entire quadrant of the board with a full set of chess pieces (minus one pawn). Partners occupy quadrants diagonally across from each other. The diagram at right shows the initial layout of the Forchess board (K=King, Q=Queen, R=Rook, B=Bishop, N=Knight, and P=Pawn). Four squares are initially unoccupied.
All the pieces move and capture in the same manner as conventional chess, except the pawn, which moves diagonally and captures laterally. A pawn may not move two squares at a time, and there is no en passant capture. There are no checkmates and no stalemates: kings are captured like all other pieces. When a player is in check and has no legal moves to escape check, he may make a "token move" every turn until his king is actually captured. When a player loses his king, his remaining pieces subsequently become the captor's. The game ends when one team has lost both kings or chooses to concede.
Partners typically coordinate their moves as part of a single strategy. Thus, communication of that strategy becomes a requirement of the game. Clandestine forms of communication such as code words, furtive gestures, or secret notes are not allowed, except in special variants. All strategizing between partners must be done openly in front of their opponents. This rule lends Forchess much of its social character.
Forchess has a variant called Cutthroat, in which there are no partners and only one player wins by defeating all three opponents. Successful strategy in Cutthroat Forchess can differ greatly from "regular" Forchess, as fluid alliances may spark a game of psychological manipulation. In this respect, Cutthroat shares strategy elements with the board game Risk.
Baroque chess is a chess variant invented in 1962 by Robert Abbott. In 1963, at the suggestion of his publisher, he changed the name to Ultima, by which name it is also known. Abbott later considered his invention flawed and suggested amendments to the rules, but these suggestions have been substantially ignored by the gaming community, which continues to play by the 1962 rules. Since the rules for Baroque were first laid down in 1962, some regional variation has arisen, causing the game to diverge from Ultima.
Bughouse chess, tandem chess, transfer chess, double bughouse, cross chess, swap chess or simply bughouse, bugsy, or bug) is a popular chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. Normal chess rules apply, except that captured pieces on one board are passed on to the teammate on the other board, who then has the option of putting these pieces on their board.
Martian Chess is an abstract strategy game for two or four players invented by Andrew Looney in 1999. It is played with Icehouse pyramids on a chessboard. To play with a number of players other than two or four, a non-Euclidean surface can be tiled to produce a board of the required size, allowing up to six players.
Makruk, or Thai chess, is a board game that is descended from the 6th-century Indian game of chaturanga or a close relative thereof, and is therefore related to chess. It is classified as a chess variant. The word "ruk" in Thai is thought to derive from "rukh" which means "chariot" in the Persian language. The Persian traders came to the Ayutthaya kingdom around the 14th century to spread their culture and to trade with the Thai kingdom. It is therefore possible that the Siamese Makruk, in its present form, was directly derived from the Persian game of Shatranj via the cultural exchange between the two peoples in this period. This is because the movement of Makruk's queen, or the "seed", is essentially the same as the ferz in Shatranj.
Vernon Rylands Parton was an English chess enthusiast and prolific chess variant inventor, his most renowned variant being Alice chess. Many of Parton's variants were inspired by the fictional characters and stories in the works of Lewis Carroll. Parton's formal education background, like Lewis Carroll's, was in mathematics. Parton's interests were wide and he was a great believer in Esperanto.
Sittuyin, also known as Burmese chess, is a strategy board game created in Myanmar. It is a direct offspring of the Indian game of chaturanga, which arrived in Myanmar in the 8th century thus it is part of the same family of games such as chess, and shogi. Sit is the modern Burmese word for army or war ; the word sittuyin can be translated as representation of the four characteristics of army—chariot, elephant, cavalry and infantry.
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Four-player chess is a family of chess variants played with four people. The game features a special board typically made of a standard 8×8 square, with 3 rows of 8 cells each extending from each side, and requires two sets of differently colored pieces. The rules are similar to, but not the same as, regular chess. There are a variety of different rule variations; most variantions, however, share a somewhat similar board and piece setup.
Hexagonal chess refers to a group of chess variants played on boards composed of hexagon cells. The best known is Gliński's variant, played on a symmetric 91-cell hexagonal board.
Three-player chess is a family of chess variants specially designed for three players. Many variations of three-player chess have been devised. They usually use a non-standard board, for example, a hexagonal or three-sided board that connects the center cells in a special way. The three armies are differentiated usually by color.
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Tri-chess is the name of a chess variant for three players invented by George R. Dekle Sr. in 1986. The game is played on a board comprising 150 triangular cells. The standard chess pieces are present, minus the queens, and plus the chancellor and cardinal compound fairy pieces per side.
Three-man chess is a chess variant for three players invented by George R. Dekle Sr. in 1984. The game is played on a hexagonal board comprising 96 quadrilateral cells. Each player controls a standard army of chess pieces.
Cross chess is a chess variant invented by George R. Dekle Sr. in 1982. The game is played on a board comprising 61 cross-shaped cells, with players each having an extra rook, knight, and pawn in addition to the standard number of chess pieces. Pieces move in the context of a gameboard with hexagonal cells, but Cross chess has its own definition of ranks and diagonals.
Quatrochess is a chess variant for four players invented by George R. Dekle Sr. in 1986. It is played on a square 14×14 board that excludes the four central squares. Each player controls a standard set of sixteen chess pieces, and additionally nine fairy pieces. The game can be played in partnership or all-versus-all.
Falcon–hunter chess is a chess variant invented by Karl Schultz in 1943, employing the two fairy chess pieces falcon and hunter. The game takes several forms, including variations hunter chess and decimal falcon–hunter chess added in the 1950s.
Hostage chess is a chess variant invented by John A. Leslie in 1997. Captured pieces are not eliminated from the game but can reenter active play through drops, similar to shogi. Unlike shogi, the piece a player may drop is one of their own pieces previously captured by the opponent. In exchange, the player returns a previously captured enemy piece which the opponent may drop on a future turn. This is the characteristic feature of the game.
Dynamo chess is a chess variant invented by chess problemists Hans Klüver and Peter Kahl in 1968. The invention was inspired by the closely related variant push chess, invented by Fred Galvin in 1967. The pieces, board, and starting position of Dynamo chess are the same as in orthodox chess, but captures are eliminated and enemy pieces are instead "pushed" or "pulled" off the board. On any given move, a player can make a standard move as in orthodox chess, or execute a "push move" or a "pull move". A move that is either a push move or a pull move is called a "dynamo move".