Construct your own
4 Way Chess Board
from two inexpensive, standard boards

For this project, you will need:
2 Basic Chess sets.
2 Colors of paint (spray works best).
Some heavy card stock or paper.
White glue.

Total cost of this project:  $2.00 +Tax
(I already had the paint and glue)

Cut up the second board:
Slice the second board into 4 matching strips and then cut two of the strips into unequal parts as shown.  This must be done or else the pattern of alternating squares can not be preserved.
Assembling the pattern:
Here we see that the central board and the add-on pieces have been arranged and glued to the underlayment - in this case a piece of newsprint.  These boards were cheap cardboard but firmer raw materials will doubtless require a firmer substrate.
Paint the figures:
Paint the third and fourth sets of figures in two additional colors so that each player's pieces can be easily spotted.
Behold!
This is the completed 4 way chess board ready for play.  While this variant has limitless possibilities for the mildly deviant, may I humbly suggest adding a set of Steve Jackson Games' Knightmare Chess cards for some Xtreme fun.

 

Vive La Differance!
Astute students of chess variants will notice that our board differs from the commercially available Chess 4 board by eliminating the third row of each "deployment zone".  Anyone wishing to, can of course make a board using these directions that matches the pattern at left, though a third board will be needed for raw materials.

 


These ideas provided by Tim of www.DiscoverPotsdam.com

Chess groups in the greater Potsdam, New York area are invited to contact me
should they wish to have a link or contact info for their Potsdam NY area Chess Club listed here.

email:  tim@discoverpotsdam.com