Fortress chess

This article is about a chess variant. For the chess manoeuvre, see Fortress (chess).

Fortress chess (also known as Russian Four-Handed chess) is a four-player chess variant played in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. The board contains 192 squares including the fortresses at its corners. The fortresses contain 16 squares and various pieces are placed inside.

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16																	16
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1																	1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p

Fortress Chess

History

One of the earliest potential references to Fortress Chess comes from William Coxe in 1784, and Alexander Petrov's grandfather noted that Catherine the Great played the variant.^[1] However, the first confirmed modern version of Russian four-handed chess comes Ivan Alexandrovich Butrimov wrote about the in 1821; however, he included few details about how the game was played.^[1] Alexander Petrov's publication of the rules and strategy in the German chess article Schachzeitung clarified most of the rules necessary to play the game.^[1][2]

Rules

Fortress chess is a 4 player variant that is played in teams of 2 with teammates sitting opposite one another and moving clockwise.^[1] Within the 192 squares; there are 128 squares in the center and 4 4x4 squares on each corner of the board.^[1] Each 4x4 square has a knight, bishop, and rook that each player may place however they see fit before the start of the game.^[1][2] All the pieces move exactly as they do in FIDE chess, with the exception of the gate on the sides of each 4x4 box, which no piece, including the knight, can go through.^[1] Pawns promote when the reach either to an opponent's side of a board, or they reach an allies board, though it is unclear whether the pawn is able to promote should it enter a player's fortress.^[1] Once an opponent is checkmated, all of their pieces are removed from the chess board.^[1] The game ends when 2 players on a team are checkmated.^[1]

Strategy

One of the key strategies for success in Fortress chess comes from running the king to the fortress for protection; as such castling queenside is often not preferred.^[2] Since all of the pieces of a teammate are removed after they are checkmated, it is significant to stop a teammate from being checkmated for success.^[2]

See also

• Forchess
• Four-player chess
• Chess portal