Insurance Chess Club
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ins.chess
Four Handed Chess
History | Rules | Make a set
PATH FROM HOME
Four-handed chess as described in these pages, dates back to the early 19th century. There are at least a dozen variants, but in the latter half of that century, two principal versions were codified by, respectively, M.E. Hughes-Hughes and G.H. Verney. The game was quite popular and a club devoted to the game, the London Four-Handed Chess Club existed up to WW II.
Two publications owned by that Club found their way into the Insurance Chess Club when the LFHCC folded. We still have those publications, two thin volumes. One is by G.H. Verney and expounds the rules of the "Verney Game"; it bears a written inscription by the author dated 21 November 1882. The other is a copy of an edition of "Four Chess" published by the Senior Chess Club, Cambridge University. It includes the rules of the "Hughes Game" and all the games in a match, played on 18th March, 1892, between a London team and Cambridge University.
We also acquired, possibly from the same source and at the same time, a four-handed chess set, which is in fact comprised of two sets of ordinary chess men, one in red and white made of bone, the other "yellow" and black wood pieces. These had ritually been counted by members of the Executive at successive annual stock-takings, for years.
For some reason, about 1991, a quartet of ICC members (Ian Hunnable, David Malcolm, Tony Paish and David Sedgwick) thought it a good idea to become acquainted with this form of chess and set about learning how to play it. One of the instruments of their instruction was the above-mentioned edition of "Four Chess", which, as has been said, contained details of a match between London and Cambridge nearly 100 years earlier and also some openings theory of the day. Now, most sensible people would have left it at that. Having made touching acquaintance with a game that quite clearly ought to come with a health warning, the intrepid quartet then did a very silly thing: they issued a challenge to Cambridge University to repeat the 1892 match on its centenary date, 18th March 1992, in London (only fair: London were away in the first match, so should be at home for the return). The University, undoubtedly not averse to the the odd reckless act, accepted with alacrity.
Before the challenge was issued, however, we had one hurdle to overcome: the two versions of the game appeared to have equal merits but we had to make a choice as to which we should follow. In fact, there was a third option which is the one we chose and that was to create a new version of the rules by combining the best features of the Hughes and the Verney games. We thus arrived at the Insurance Chess Club Rules for Four-handed Chess which are given below. It was these rules we adopted and sent to Cambridge with our challenge.
The hybrid ICC 4H rules in fact drew principally on the Hughes game, as employed in the 1892 match, with only a number of minor modifications being drawn from the Verney game. Therefore, the games and opening theory published in Four Chess were fully available to act as our guide.
The re-match took place over two boards at the offices of the Royal on the appointed date. Naturally, they trounced us. We had had, perhaps two months start on them in boning up on this pursuit, but we were outwitted.
A sequel to the match was its fortuitous and largely unmerited enshrinement in a book called The Encyclopaedia of Chess Variants by D.B. Pritchard. The author was in the throes of putting his volume together when our match took place and, since we were tactless enough to issue press releases of our exploits, he came to hear of it and contacted us with interest. Games and details were supplied and lo and behold, when the book was published we had taken our place in a quite extensive entry on four-handed chess. The ECV is a handsome volume packed with more variants of the royal game than you could ever imagine existed (see review in ChessIns Vol 12 No 1). We do not know if it is still in print, but it was published by Games & Puzzles Publications.
PAGES AT THIS LEVEL
History | Rules | Make a set | Top
Insurance Chess Club Rules for Four-handed Chess
1 All the laws of the two-handed game (ordinary chess) which are not abrogated by the following rules apply in four-handed chess.
2 A four-handed chess-board consists of the 64 squares of an ordinary chess-board with the addition of three rows of squares at each side (see diagram below). The game is played with four sets of chessmen, arranged from right to left in the following order: White, Black, Yellow, Red. The chessmen are set out on the very back rows of every side of the board; White and Yellow having the white square to the right of their sides of the board (see diagram below).
3 The players who are opposite to each other become partners, and it is their object to mate the other two, and vice versa. Therefore the players Yellow and White, have to unite their forces both for attack and defence against the combined forces of the partners, Red and Black.
The pieces and pawns of those players who are partners have no antagonistic influence over each other, as for all purposes they are working together for the common object of checkmating their adversaries. In this way the Kings of partners could meet on adjoining squares, as in no case do the Pieces and Pawns of one partner attack the Pieces or Pawns of the other.
4 White has the first move. The order of rotation in moving is White, Black, Yellow, Red.
5 A game is won by the pair of partners who mate both opponents or whose opponents resign.
6 A game is drawn if:
a) one pair of partners are both stalemated
b) a player is checkmated and his partner is stalemated
c) neither side has adequate material to mate both opponents
7 A stalemated player's pieces have the same properties as a mated player's.
8 If one player be stalemated and his partner free to move, the former simply loses his move and the game continues.
9 When one player is checkmated, the others continue to move in the same order as before, but he loses his move. The mated player's pieces merely occupy and block up the squares upon which they stand; they can neither be taken nor moved over so long as the mate continues.
10 When a player is checkmated his partner may raise the mate by: a) taking one of the mating pieces, b) inducing one of the mating pieces to move, c) interposing one of his own pieces, or d) mating one of his opponents whose pieces are necessary to the checkmate. In the case of d) the player must mate with his pieces alone, since his partner's pieces are inert.
11 An opponent of a checkmated player may release the checkmated adversary, though he cannot in the same move by which he releases the mate take any of the pieces or pawns of the adversary so released, but directly the move is made by which the mate is released the pieces of the released player are liable to capture by the other adversary when it comes to his turn to move, even though the player so released may not have had a turn in which to make a move.
12 No player can move so as to cause check to be given to either his own or to his partners King; and if he cannot escape check to his own king without causing check to his partner's, he is mated.
13 A pawn becomes a Queen or any other piece of the same colour, at the player's option, when it reaches by successive captures the back row of either opponent.
14 Should a pawn reach a partner's back row it must remain there unless captured.
15 Friendly pawns meeting cannot move further except by capturing.
16 No communication of any sort or kind is allowed to take place between the players with reference to the game, during play.
History | Rules | Make a set | Top
Making a four-handed set
This is quite easy (you knew It would be, didn't you?).
The board can simply be drawn with felt tip marker on a large piece of paper or cloth (a piece of an old sheet would be fine). Two inch squares would give you a board 28" square.
You then need two sets of chess men. They don't have to be white, black, yellow and red; just four contrasting sets of pieces, two light two dark. And there you have it.
If, like the Webmaster, you have a number of pocket sets lying around, you could even make a miniature four-handed set. I knocked one up one Saturday afternoon, in order to proof-read the games you'll find on the 1892 and 1992 match pages. I used two packaging cartons made of corrugated card (they originally contained printer cartridges). I cut three 7" squares and stuck them together like a sandwich, ensuring that one of the plain brown inside surfaces was uppermost, giving me a 3-ply board of a thickness greater than the depth of the shank on the bottom of the pieces. I then simply drew a 4H board in pencil,with half inch squares, and marked the dark squares with black felt tip marker. I punched a hole in the centre of each square with a sharp object and had a miniature four-handed board. The pocket sets I have, include one where the black pieces are, in fact red, and another where they are black; these two sets therefore provided the white black and red pieces. Another set I have is made of wood and the "white" pieces are a sort of yellowy colour, so they were fine for the "yellow" men.
