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Yáng Qí. Yankee ingenuity adds new power to Chinese Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Sam wrote on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 12:20 AM UTC:I like your idea, but you are now taking away chinese chess stratgey and puting in regular chess stratgey. This is not how chinese chess was suppose to be based off of. And another thing, the elephant in chiness chess isn't able to cross the river because then the other person's elephant couldn't take them. You see. The beuity with Chinese chess is that you can move any piece at the beginning of the game, giving the game many more posiblitys in the game. In other words, you need to redo it and stop thinking of regular chess.
Sam wrote on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 03:20 PM UTC:Poor ★This page is hard to read and understand. Make it that a 7 year old person could read this and understand very good.
Carlos MartÃn wrote on Tue, Feb 4, 2003 08:57 PM UTC:Just a tiny constructive comment: If you made the white and red Bishops start on columns 'C' and 'F' (instead of 'C' and 'G') and the Arrows start on 'D' and 'G' (instead of 'D' and 'F'), you would have a Bishop and an Arrow moving on each type (color) of squares; and therefore no need of the 'King-Jump Rule', which I believe is a thing that doesn't fit well with the rest of an otherwise interesting game.
Sam wrote: 'The beuity with Chinese chess is that you can move any piece at the beginning of the game, giving the game many more posiblitys in the game.' While it is true that any piece can move at the beginning of Chinese Chess, it is also true that any piece may move at the beginning of Yang Qi. If you consider more opening moves a reason for favoring a game, consider that Yang Qi has 55 possible opening moves, while Chinese Chess has only 44.
Switching the place of an Arrow and a Sage is not a bad idea. Although it was a design goal to mirror the setup of Chinese Chess as much as possible, changing the setup may have some advantages in terms of game play. Because the setup is symmetrical, its 55 possible opening moves are equivalent to 28 opening moves. Likewise, the 44 opening moves in Chinese Chess are equivalent to 23 opening moves, which is not that far off from the 20 available in Chess. By making the setup asymmtrical, as it is in Chess, all 55 possible opening moves would be distinct from each other. I'll put some variant setups in an updated ZRF.
When I calculated the number of opening moves in Yang Qi, I omitted the King's two swapping moves. So there are 57 possible opening moves.
Anonymous wrote on Thu, Feb 6, 2003 02:28 AM UTC:<p>If you want to have one Bishop and Arrow on each color, yet keep the setup more or less symmetrical, another option is to play on a board with an even number of columns (for example 8 so that the game is <i>westernized</i> a little more).</p>
<p>The white Bishops would start at <b>c1</b> and <b>f1</b> (as in FIDE), then the Arrows at <b>c2</b> and <b>f2</b> (in front of the Bishops, who are the other diagonal pieces, and beside the Cannons, who are the other leaping pieces).</p>
<p>Finally, the white King would start at <b>e1</b> and, to fill the empty <b>d1</b>, there could be a <i>Queen</i> or, if you prefer, a <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/leo.html' target='_blank'><b>Leo</b></a> (Cannon + Arrow). Then, of course, symmetrical setup for black.</p>
<p>(P.S.: I think I count 61 opening moves for Yang Qi as it is now!)</p>
I think you counted four extra double moves for the forward Pawns. Only the rear Pawns have double moves. There are only 57 possible opening moves.
Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 9, 2003 10:58 AM UTC:Good ★★★★Having read the 'older feedback' it strikes me that the most logical name for the game would be Sheng Qi (Sage Game) - so that like both Xiang Qi (Elephant Game) and Shogi (General Game) it is named after the third piece in. For a Xiang Qi variant closer to the original, see my comments on Xiang Qi itself.
In Shogi, there are three Generals. There is the Silver General, the Gold General, and the Jeweled General, which we normally call a King. So I think the Shogi name refers to the presence of Generals rather than to one specific General piece. But Sheng Qí is still a suitable name for name for Yáng Qí. I might have thought to use it if I hadn't already named the game before deciding on a Chinese name for the Bishop.
Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 16, 2003 11:20 AM UTC:Closer to the original (i.e. to Xiang Xi itself) than is the version suggested here, i.e. more clearly a variant of Xiang Xi rather than of the Western game.
it tries to make xiang xi western chess, which it is not. you have taken out the flexibility of xiang xi and systematized the game like in western chess.
Although Cannons and pieces derived from them are not really my thing, credit should be given for the idea of combining features of two well-established games. Indeed as I have now used that idea in a different way in a game of my own (http://www.chessvariants.com/xiangqivariants.dir/anglis_qi.html) it would churlish for me not to! Incidentally I note that Yang has now gained a new prominence, as one of the names of China's first astronaut.
To be precise, your 'QuickPawns' move exactly like the Pawns on the 12x12 board of Perfect Chess, a non-competing entry in the Large Variant 99 Contest. Jean-Louis Cazaux states on his rules page:
<p>'It can advance one or two square from ANY position on the board. However, its capturing move is unchanged: one square diagonally forward. As a consequence, the en-passant capture is possible every time the opposite Pawn has advanced two squares. When the Pawn reaches the last row it can promote to one of the three major pieces: Queen, Lion or Gryphon. '
I guess that's true, except that I was unaware of the game mentioned. My QuickPawns are based on Kevin Begley's Quick-Pawns from Mammoth Chess. The main difference is that the unhyphenated kind can capture each other by en passant. BTW, although the rules for his game have been deleted from chessvariants.com, they are still available here: http://web.archive.org/web/20000609140622/http://chessvariants.com/large.dir/contest/mammoth.html Archive.org is part of Big Brother's attempt to keep tabs on all of us by showing the world the things we decided to delete from our webpages. Actually, they provide details on how to opt out of having your webpages archived here: http://www.archive.org/about/exclude.php But if you've since gotten rid of a website, there might be nothing you can do to escape the watching eye of Big Brother.
This is worse than Xiang-Qi, because the rules of Xiang-Qi that you removed is supposed to be in Xiang-Qi, is make Xiang-Qi good! Still, it is good as a non-Xiang-qi.game Another game which fixes the problem of weak pieces (by adding another weak piece!) is Para-Xiang-Qi!
Recently, through a crossword, I discovered that there is a musical instrument called a Yangqin, a kind of dulcimer. According to the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangqin it has used two different characters for Yang, originally one meaning foreign, and later replace by one meaning acclaimed. Oddly enough the name of this variant works just as well with either of these characters. The 'foreign' sense is obvious - a non-Chinese variant adding in the non-Chinese Bishop. The 'acclaimed' sense is, I would argue, demonstrated by all the positive previous comments from connoisseurs of variants.
The rating is because I am now won over to the Cannon family of pieces, and have now used them in a few variants of my own.
Seeing your recent photos of a Staunton-style Xiang Qi set reminded me to post a comment regarding equipment. Yang Qi can also be played with just two identical Staunton FIDE sets. Arrows can be represented by Queens and Cannons by inverted Rooks.
Game is not bad... But just as a game, because IT'S NOT XIANG-QI VARIANT!! It's just CHESS variant, wich uses ONE piece from xiang-qi and variant of this piece!! If there would'nt be game with same name, this could be called 'Chess with cannons'!!
Game is not bad... But just as a game, because IT'S NOT XIANG-QI VARIANT!! It's just CHESS variant, wich uses ONE piece from xiang-qi and variant of this piece!! If there would'nt be game with same name, this could be called 'Chess with cannons'!!
You may have a narrow conception of what constitutes a Xiang Qi variant, one which I don't share. This game counts as a Xiang Qi variant, because it is based on Xiang Qi, and it can be played with the same equipment. The idea behind this game was not to introduce cannons to Chess but to westernize Chinese Chess.
'This game counts as a Xiang Qi variant, because it is based on Xiang Qi, and it can be played with the same equipment.' So, you want to say that games, wich adds R+N and B+N compounds on 10x8 or 10x10 are not FIDE chess variants, because they cannot be played with FIDE chess equipment? Your Eurasian chess is perfect, it's idea is to make game, wich have equal from chess and XQ and chess, and this idea is perfectly fulfilled, but Yang-qi is supposed to have more from XQ, but it's much closer to western chess... Also, it cannot be played with XQ equipment, it have more pawns. I can suggest to use only 5 pawns, and, to make possible protecting pawns with other pawns possible, give them non-capturing sideways move (initially, NOT after crossing river). It also will give more XQ feeling. They may be placed on opening positions of XQ pawns, but, i think, better is to put in frontof knights pawns, wich are in front of bishops, as here knights are stronger than cannons, and it's not good if cannons would be able to capture them on first moves...
HP wrote:
'This game counts as a Xiang Qi variant, because it is based on Xiang Qi, and it can be played with the same equipment.' So, you want to say that games, wich adds R+N and B+N compounds on 10x8 or 10x10 are not FIDE chess variants, because they cannot be played with FIDE chess equipment?
No, I did not give necessary conditions for being a Xiang Qi variant. I only gave a sufficient condition, which is being based on Xiang Qi and using the same equipment. Being based on Chess and using the same equipment as Chess is a sufficient condition for being a Chess variant, but it is not a necessary condition. So, games which use R+N and B+N with the Chess pieces on a larger board may still count as Chess variants.
But you are correct to point out that Yang Qi cannot be played with the same equipment as Xiang Qi, because it uses extra Pawns. However, all the equipment to play Yang Qi can be found in two Xiang Qi sets, which is close enough. After all, using exactly the same equipment is not a necessary condition for being a Xiang Qi variant.
I can disagree that Yangqi have 57 opening moves. It have 29 opening moves: this game have perfect simmetry, and each move have another move, wich is equal to it, expect moving general or center pawn straight forward. But second player really have 57 opening moves, unless first player moved general or center pawn straight forward. Same things can be told about Xiangqi.
I'm sorry, i meant 30, not 29.
Korean variant: sage moves as zebra. Cannon and arrow must leap, capturing, or not.
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