Four player chess (or four handed chess) was popular in the Victorian era. It requires a larger chess board so that pieces for three of four players can be set in the standard arrangement. It remains in interesting variant of chess because pieces attack from all sides. Also, few computer chess opponents work with four player chess and therefore the game is mostly immune to people cheating with chess computers. With the widespread availability of three dimensional printing, an additional avenue is available to make four sets of chess pieces in differing colours.

A variant of four player chess works on a conventional 8×8 chess board. However, it requires a lesser number of pieces to be bunched in corners. The rules differ considerably from conventional chess because, for example, pawns move diagonally. The Victorian version is far superior because the rules only differ from conventional chess when strictly neccesary and the result is a fairly balanced game for three or four players.

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