My son wanted the whole family to be able to play chess at one time, so I created a chess board and adjusted a few rules to allow 4 people to play at one time. The players can take sides and play 2 against 2, hence "Chess Alliance".

It's a group oriented game & not for 2 players, unless you want to control 2 armies.

If anyones interested in the details, keep this thread alive & I'll tell you what I did. The dynamic of having 4 armies on the board are very interesting!

Joe

So then does the alliance who won play a normal game chess to see who will be the overall victor?


Risk may also be a good game for what you are looking for.

It depends on what you decide in the begining of the game. You can have it either way, but the coolest part (to me) is once you've defeated an opponent his king & queen are removed from the board, and his men become yours to control

I've tried to make the game flexible since it is a multi-player game. I don't like games that drag on and on, so I've put a time limit on moving. I don't want another "Monopoly".

To me "Risk" is too boring. All you do is roll the dice and see who wins...not much of a challenge. Chess Alliance brings Chess to a new dynamic level.

Have you heard of bughouse?

This game works best with a clock, but is a lot of fun.

Basically, you play chess on boards next to each other across a table. You sit next to your teammate. I'm playing white on one board and my opponent is playing black on the other board.

When I capture a piece, I hand it to my opponent, and he may drop it on any square on his board, on his move, in lieu of moving a piece already on the board.

Pawns and promotion rules are a little tricky. Online, most people play that you can promote anyway you want, but promoted pawns are, again, pawns once they're captured to be dropped on the other board. (eg, if I promote a pawn to queen, and you capture it, you are handing a pawn, not a queen, to your teammate to drop).

In person, it's often easier to play that pawns, when they reach the eighth rank, become blockers, which may never be moved or captured.

In both circumstances, the rule is generally that you can't drop a pawn on the eighth rank.

It's lots and lots of fun, because the effect of all the extra material flying around is that you really need to sacrifice for attack. eg 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Bxf7+ is almost certainly correct, provided your teammate is prepared to feed you material. Often you'll have situations where one player sacrifices a tremendous amoutn of material on one board to give his teammate the piece which forces mate ... eg saccing a night for a queen when a knight is mate.

Also, knights end up being much more powerful than bishops, because so long as you have pieces to drop, long-range pieces are less effective than short range ones.

I highly recommend it!

OK, here's the rules...
Chess Alliance
Rules:
3-4 Player game.
Checkered board is White-Black-Blue-Red
Checkered board is 16x16 patterns vertically & horizontally.
Men are placed 3 spaces from the edges on both sides so that they are in the middle of the board.
It is the same basic moves as regular chess, except for the following…
1. Queen does not “get her color”. Pieces are set up rom left to right… Sentry, Rook, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Sentry. Pawns are in their normal positions.
2. Sentry…new man that sits beside Rook. He can move one space in any direction, like the king. His job is basically to guard your flank.
3. Bishops can travel diagonally on same color or combination of red-black or blue-white.
4. Alliances must be made before game starts, not during.
5. If you take a man from you Ally, he is no longer your Ally
6. Once you capture/checkmate an opponent’s king, the king & queen are removed from the board and his men are now yours to control.
7. After your opponents are checkmated, you have the option to attack your ally to continue game, or call it quits.
8. Allies must sit adjacent to each other during the game & can converse and make plans in secret. When no longer allies, secret moves no longer allowed.
9. (Optional) Players get no more than 60 seconds to move, and they HAVE to move by 60 seconds or their ally can move their man for them.
10. If only 3 players, remove the 4th players pieces.

oh yes! i also play Risk and Risk 2..both the board game and the computer version...it's also a strategical game like chess...