Verney’s four-handed chess

How Verney’s four-handed chess works

George Verney’s four-handed chess of 1881: Yellow and White against Red and Black on a cross-shaped board. Partners sit opposite each other.

Board and turns

The board is 14 by 14 squares without its four corners, and all four queens stand on light squares. Yellow moves first, then Red, White and Black, clockwise, so the two teams take turns. Pieces move as in ordinary chess, but there is no castling.

Partners

You cannot capture your partner’s pieces, and they never attack your king. No move may expose your partner’s king to a new check, just as no move may expose your own. A bot plays your partner unless a person at this device does.

Pawns

A pawn moves one square at a time, never two, so there is no en passant. It may leap over a partner’s pawn straight ahead onto the empty square beyond. On your partner’s back rank it turns and walks back towards you, capturing in that direction; back on its starting rank it turns forward again. It becomes a queen only on an enemy’s back rank, which it can reach only by capturing.

A mated player

A checkmated player stays on the board but cannot move and misses every turn. The army’s pieces are inert: they neither attack nor defend, cannot be captured and only block their squares, so enemy pieces may pass between them and even stand in their range. When the mate no longer holds, because a piece that held it was captured or moved away, the army comes back to life and plays again in its turn. Its pieces may then be captured at once.

Winning and draws

A team wins when both enemy kings are checkmated at the same time. A player who cannot move passes; if neither player of a team can move (one mated and the other stalemated, or both stalemated), the game is drawn. The same position three times, fifty moves of every player without a capture or a pawn move, and too little material (no rook or queen, and at most one bishop or knight per team) are draws too.

The story

Germany and England · from 1779 in Germany; Verney’s booklet, England, 1881

When and where

Chess for four, on a board with an extra arm on each side, was played in Germany from the 18th century. George Hope Verney, an English officer, made it popular in Britain with a booklet in 1881.

How it changed

His board had 160 squares, partners sat opposite, and a team won by mating both enemy kings. He founded a four-handed chess club in London that met until the Second World War.

Today

This app plays Verney’s laws as his booklet of 1881 gave them and his Chess Eccentricities of 1885 explained them; both games he printed there can be replayed move for move.

Did you know?

His Chess Eccentricities (1885) collected chess for three to eight players, among them India’s four-handed game and Alfonso’s Four Seasons.

Sources: D. B. Pritchard, The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (2007) · G. H. Verney, Chess Eccentricities (1885) · G. H. Verney, Four-handed Chess (1881) · Wikipedia

More games

Chess and variants

• Chess · Classic chess or Chess960 with a shuffled back rank, against a bot.
• Chess960 · Fischer random chess: the back rank starts in one of 960 setups.
• Antichess · Losing chess: give away all your pieces, captures are compulsory.
• Atomic chess · Every capture is an explosion that clears the pieces around it.
• Crazyhouse · Captured pieces change sides and can be dropped back onto the board.
• Duck chess · After every move you move the duck, which blocks everyone. No check.
• Fog of War · You only see where your pieces can move. Capture the king to win.
• Friendly Chess · Nothing is captured: pieces unite and set off chain reactions.

The chess family

• Chaturanga · India’s ancient chess, the root of the family: take the king to win.
• Shatranj · The medieval ancestor of chess, with a weak ferz and a jumping alfil.
• Medieval chess · Europe’s chess before 1475: the ferz and the king may leap on their first move.
• Courier chess · Medieval Germany’s chess on a 12 × 8 board, with the courier, the man and the schleich.
• Makruk · Thai chess: a slow, strategic game with a counting rule.
• Ouk Chatrang · Cambodian chess: Makruk with a leap for the king and the met.
• Sittuyin · Burmese chess: set up your pieces, then promote on the diagonals.
• Kar Ouk · Ouk Chatrang where the first check wins: guard your king.
• Xiangqi · Chinese chess: a river, palaces and a cannon that jumps to capture.
• Janggi · Korean chess: no river, palace diagonals and a cannon that always jumps.
• Shogi · Japanese chess: captured pieces return to the board on your side.
• Minishogi · Shogi on a 5 × 5 board: six pieces a side, short and sharp games.

More players

• Chaturaji · India’s four-handed chess: kings can be captured, captures score.
• Four Seasons Chess · Alfonso X’s chess for four from 1283: four seasons, the last king wins.
• Three-player chess · Three armies on a hexagonal board: you against two bots.
• Four-player chess · Four armies on a cross-shaped board: in teams or all against all.
• Eight-player chess · Eight armies on a board of 516 squares: all against all, in pairs or four against four.