Fortress chess

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

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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.

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. The first confirmed modern version of Russian four-handed chess comes from what Ivan Alexandrovich Butrimov wrote about the game in 1821; however, he included few details about how the game was played. 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.

Rules

Fortress chess is a 4-player variant that is played in teams of 2 with teammates sitting opposite one another and moving clockwise. Within the 192 squares; there are 128 squares in the center and four 4×4 squares on each corner of the board. Each 4×4 square has a knight, bishop, and rook that each player may place however they see fit before the start of the game. All the pieces move exactly as they do in FIDE chess, with the exception of the gate on the sides of each 4×4 box, which no piece, including the knight, can go through. Pawns promote when they 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. Once an opponent is checkmated, all of their pieces are removed from the chessboard. The game ends when both players on a team are checkmated.

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. Since all of the pieces of a teammate are removed after they are checkmated, it is significant for success to stop a teammate from being checkmated.

See also

• Forchess
• Four-player chess
• Chess portal

Further reading

• Pritchard, D. B. (1994). "Fortress Chess". The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. pp. 111–12. ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
• Pritchard, D. B. (2007). "Fortress Chess". In Beasley, John (ed.). The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. John Beasley. pp. 324–25. ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.

External links

• "Russian fortress chess" at The Chess Variant Pages
• https://web.archive.org/web/20081013193034/http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0206.htm