Dear Sean,
I am in sixth grade, and on our playground we play a little differently than the rules you have listed. The way we play, the person who was in the server square (royalty) last wins the game. Their are many fights among us about this, and I would like to know more about this scores. We have never played by giving people scores, or points, so I would like to know more about doing scores. - Celeste, 11/30/2007

Celeste, glad to hear from you. The way that we keep score is very complicated and requires at least one extra person to sit at a score sheet and keep track. Its not very fun for that person and I don't recommend you try it at school since no one will want to do that job.

But what you can do is much simpler. You can keep track of each time a person serves the ball from four square then you give them a point. They can keep track of it themselves too, just with a piece of chalk on the playground pavement or something. YOu can also have the person call out the total number of serves they have on each serve, like playing HORSE on a basketball court. That works only if everyone is honest.

I have also done elimination games where everyone has like three pieces of tape on their sleeves and as they get out you have to give up one piece of tape - and the last person with tape is the winner.

Hope this helps, and by the way, you can read our new writeup on Four Square Competitions for full details on the scoring options out there.