The quick version
Tabletop Teams house format: Red starts, then Blue, Yellow and Green, repeating clockwise. Red and Yellow are partners; Blue and Green are partners. Move only your own army and never capture an ally. Checkmate is assessed when the threatened player's turn arrives: mate one opponent to win together. Captures earn no points.
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Build the board and seat the teams
Use a cross-shaped board with 160 playable squares: a 14-by-14 grid with each 3-by-3 corner removed. That leaves an 8-by-8 center and an eight-square-wide, three-row-deep arm on each side. An ordinary 64-square board is too small. A homemade board with this layout works; keep its squares large enough for the pieces.
Viewed from above, seat Red at the bottom, Blue on the left, Yellow at the top and Green on the right. Opposite players form a team. Assign people to colors by agreement or draw lots. Other piece colors are fine if everyone can distinguish the four armies and labels each seat with its Red, Blue, Yellow or Green role.
Each person needs eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one queen and one king. From each player's own left to right, fill the eight squares nearest that player with rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. Place eight pawns immediately in front of them; leave the third row empty. Rotate this same arrangement for every seat. This is our house setup: use the stated order rather than the ordinary two-player rule about a queen's square color.
Use these house choices for the whole game: no castling and no en passant. Play untimed. Partners may discuss plans openly, but each person moves only their own pieces. Keep spare pieces or clearly labeled markers nearby for promotion.
Refresh the piece moves
Follow the real squares
Move one of your pieces per turn. Own and allied pieces block landing; enemy pieces may be captured except kings. Remove a captured piece. Rooks, bishops and queens stop at the first occupied square and cannot cross a missing corner.
Move the back-row pieces
Rooks slide horizontally or vertically; bishops diagonally; queens either way. Knights jump in an L: two squares one way and one at right angles, landing on a real square. Kings step one square in any direction. Enemy kings cannot be adjacent; allied kings may be.
Keep each pawn's direction
Pawns advance toward the opposite seat: Red up, Blue right, Yellow down, Green left. Move one square into an empty square, or two from that pawn's starting square if both are empty. Capture one square diagonally forward. Pawns never turn, retreat or capture straight ahead. They cannot enter a missing square.
Protect your own king
Your king must be safe from both enemy armies after your move. A piece attacks using its capture pattern, even if moving it would expose its own king. Pawns attack diagonally, not forward. Never capture a king.
You cannot move through your partner's army with a sliding piece or land on an allied piece with any piece. Knights can jump over pieces. Captured pieces stay off the board; they are not handed to your partner or dropped back into play.
Count promotion from your own edge
For each army, its back row is rank 1 and its pawn row is rank 2. Count rows straight toward the opposite seat. A pawn promotes as soon as it lands on its own rank 11, not rank 8 and not the opposite back row. Capturing sideways never changes which direction that pawn counts.
For Red, count eleven rows upward from the bottom; for Blue, eleven columns rightward from the left; for Yellow, eleven rows downward from the top; for Green, eleven columns leftward from the right. Along the central eight files, rank 11 is the far edge of the central 8-by-8 area, just before the opposite arm. Mark each army's promotion line before starting.
Replace the pawn immediately with a queen, rook, bishop or knight of its own army. You may choose a piece even if none of that type has been captured. A labeled marker can represent an extra piece; announce its type and keep it clear. The new piece takes effect immediately, but does not make another move on that turn.
Take turns and resolve check
Start with Red
Red makes one legal move, then announces Blue's turn. Continue Red → Blue → Yellow → Green → Red. One trip through all four colors is a circuit. No passing, skipped seats or extra moves; everyone keeps their own army throughout this game.
Announce a threatened king
Say which king is in check when a move creates an attack. The checked player waits for their normal turn; check does not change the order. Intervening players still take their turns, and an ally may remove the threat by capturing the attacker or blocking its line. A player is responsible for their own king's safety after moving; a partner's pending check does not itself make that move illegal.
Assess the player whose turn begins
First look at that player's king in the current position, after all intervening moves. If it is attacked, the player must make a legal move that removes every attack, whether by moving the king, capturing an attacker or blocking a line. If no such move exists, that player is checkmated and the opposing team wins immediately. Do not wait for another teammate's turn or remove the king.
Finish or pass the turn
If the player is not in check but has no legal move with any piece, stalemate ends the whole game as a draw. Otherwise make one legal move and pass the turn to the next color. A threatening position is not a finished mate until its victim's turn begins. The first result reached ends play, even if another king also faces a pending mate.
Suppose Green checks Red. Red is next and must answer immediately. But if Blue checks Red, Yellow and Green move before Red's turn; Yellow may be able to help. Nobody captures Red's king while the check is pending.
Agree the result and reset
A team wins when an opponent is checkmated at the start of that opponent's turn, or when either opponent resigns. Resigning concedes for the whole team immediately; ask your partner before doing it. Do not continue with three players. There is no material score or individual winner within a winning team.
A draw ends the whole game on turn-start stalemate, agreement by all four players, or a position in which neither team could ever checkmate through any legal continuation. Four bare kings are a simple example. If you cannot establish that a more complicated position is dead, keep playing or agree a draw.
Repetition is a house draw: when everyone confirms the same position has occurred three times, stop and draw. It must have the same pieces on the same squares, the same color to move and the same legal possibilities, including which pawns retain their initial two-square move. The repeats need not be consecutive. Record or photograph a position if repetition becomes likely. This untimed house game uses no separate 50-move or 75-move count.
For a rematch, reset every army and choose the seats again. Keep the Teams finish unless you deliberately choose one of the house twists below. If you need to stop an unfinished game, all four may agree a draw or record the position and next color to resume later; do not award a win just because one army has more pieces.
Host the first circuit
Point to each seat and say the order together: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green. Ask everyone to identify their opposite partner, pawn direction and promotion line. Demonstrate a knight jump and one diagonal pawn capture away from the starting position, then restore the board.
For an easy first action, Red can advance the pawn in front of their king one square into the empty third row. Check Red's king is still safe and pass to Blue. Let each player choose a legal move. Before every later move, ask: 'Will my king be safe? Does my partner need help before their turn?'
Use a friendly house correction policy: an illegal move is restored and replaced with a legal one, without losing a turn. If discovered after replies, undo the later moves in reverse order to the last agreed legal position, then resume from that color. If everyone cannot reconstruct it, restart with no result. An ordinary legal mistake stands unless you chose the lifelines twist before play. Keep captured pieces grouped by army so restoration and resetting are easy.
Optional: play online instead
If your group prefers a digital board, Chess.com offers four-player chess through its Variants page, linked below as an optional online choice. The platform's selected rules and account requirements apply there; this tabletop house format is not a promise of identical online settings.
Its Free-for-All mode is a different ruleset with individual scoring, elimination and different promotion rules. It is not Teams with partners removed. Use that platform's complete rules if you choose it rather than mixing its scoring into this guide.
Already know the game?
Ideas & Twists
Skim the ideas, then open a twist for its full rules. Agree on the variation before you start.
Switch partners
Play three games and partner with each person once.
How to play this twist
Play three separate games so each person partners with everyone once. Label people A, B, C and D: use A+B against C+D, then A+C against B+D, then A+D against B+C. Seat partners opposite each time and reset the board. Keep the same tabletop rules for all three. Each person earns one session point for a team win, half for a draw and zero for a loss. Highest personal total wins the session; share a tie. Allow time for three complete games.
Four-player chess · See main rules
Silent partners
Coordinate through the board rather than discussing moves.
How to play this twist
Read your partner's plan from the board instead of discussing moves. After setup, allow no strategic speech, pointing, signals or written messages between partners. Still announce turns and checks, explain rules, correct illegal moves and discuss draw offers or resignation openly. Keep every board rule and the normal team finish. For the next game, restore open discussion and compare what each partner thought the plan was.
Four-player chess · See main rules
Pawn breakthrough
Win by escorting a pawn to its promotion line.
How to play this twist
Add a second route to victory: the first team to land a pawn legally on its own 11th rank wins immediately, replacing that promotion. Your own king must be safe after the move. A turn-start checkmate or stalemate, resignation, repetition or other draw may end the game earlier. Keep all four complete armies, ordinary pawn directions and normal turn order. This makes escorting a pawn as important as attacking a king.
Four-player chess · See main rules
Minor-piece promotion
Promote only to a knight or bishop.
How to play this twist
At the usual 11th-rank promotion line, choose only a bishop or knight instead of any of the four ordinary choices. The new piece still belongs to that pawn's army and takes effect immediately. All original queens and rooks remain in play. Keep king safety, turn order and the normal team finish. Plan whether a jumping knight or a long diagonal will help your partner most.
Four-player chess · See main rules
Two team lifelines
Share two chances to rethink a move before the next reply.
How to play this twist
Give each team two visible tokens. After a teammate completes a legal move, but before the next player touches a piece to start their reply or any game-ending result is resolved, either partner may spend one token to take back that team's just-completed move. Restore any capture, pawn first-move status and promotion exactly; the same player must choose a different legal move. If none exists, the original move stands and no token is spent. Never undo intervening moves or a finished game. Tokens are shared by the pair and never replenished. Illegal-move corrections remain free. Otherwise use the normal team finish.
Four-player chess · See main rules
About this guide
Chess.com supports the board size, clockwise order, opposite partnerships, allied-capture restriction, Teams promotion rank and turn-start mate/stalemate. FIDE supports the ordinary move vocabulary, not this four-player format. STUD specifies the rotational starting array, no castling or en passant, no king captures, own-king safety, open discussion, untimed play, repetition and correction procedures as a complete tabletop house version. The five twists are editorial house suggestions, not official Chess.com rules. Choose one twist at a time. Other physical editions and online variants may differ.
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