Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Daniil Frolov wrote on Fri, Jul 9, 2010 11:08 AM UTC:
Hey! In Cazaux's http://history.chess.free.fr i saw description of ancient Chinese game:

'The eldest undeniable
reference for the Xianqi is the Xuanguai lu (‘Tales of the obscure and
peculiar’) writen by the Tang Minister of State Niu Sengru (779-847), a
collection of tales of the supernatural. One is telling the of  Cen Shun
dreaming of a battle to come (which was supposed to occur in 762 AD.):
'the celestial Horse springs aslant over three, the Commanders go
sideaways and attack on all four sides, the baggage-waggons go straight
forwards and never backwards, the six men in armour (or the men armed with
six weapons) go in file but no backwards... On both sides stuff was
unpacked, stones and arrows flew across.' To make it absolutely clear,
these moves can be deduced from the text, but not with certainty. Since the
source is unique the greatest prudence is recommended. There is just
another mention in poem from Niu's contemporary and friend Bo Juyi
(772-846) which explicitly evoke Soldiers and Charriots.'

Statement that commander go sideways perfectly suits Hide's statement that semedo king 'don't go to attack'! Description of baggage-wagon resembles shogi lances, but hide's description of vessel resembles it (remotely) to! Knight might be able to leap ('springs').
So, semedo and this game might be one game, or related!

If someone knows more about one of these games, please, let us know!

Edit Form

Comment on the page Semedo

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.