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I have checked the books in my library for values. Terence Donelly, 'Hsiang Ch'i, The Chinese Game of Chess', and Dennis Leventhal, 'The Chess of China', do not bring up the topic at all. Sam Sloan, 'Chinese Chess for Beginners', discusses how a table of values such as is used in FIDE chess is invalid. H. T. Lau, 'Chinese Chess', gives: 9 Rook 4.5 Cannon 4 Knight 2 Counsellor 2 Minister 2 Pawn (after crossing river) 1 Pawn (before crossing river) David Li, 'First Syllabus on Xiangqi', has an eight-page chapter with six charts, which may be summarized: Opening Midgame Endgame 10 10 10 Chariot 4.5 4.5 4 Cannon 1 1 1 Cannon, premium when paired 4 4.5 5 Horse 1 1 1 Horse, premium when paired 2.5 2.5 2.5 Advisor 2.5 2.5 2.5 Elephant - 2 2 River-crossed Pawn - - 1.5 Old Pawn (on last rank) 2 2 2 Center Pawn .75 .75 .75 Other Pawns There it is, for what it's worth.
I have a set in which only Rooks, Knights, and Cannons are the same for the two sides; however, I believe that I bought this xiang qi set in the late 1960s, and that the date of purchase predates the great simplification in which Mao's government reduced the number of ideograms in everyday use from 50,000 to 5000. Perhaps the great simplification changed the look of Xiang Qi?
The Cannons are the most interesting and difficult to use pieces in Xiangqi, and add much to the tactical potential of the game. The earliest versions of Xiangqi did not have the Cannons (gunpower was not invented back then), which made them much less tactically interesting than modern Xiangqi. Without the Cannons, one's attacking potential is a lot smaller. Cannons improved Xiangqi in a similar way to how the increased powers of the Queen improved Chess. Cannons were added to Chinese Chess during the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD) when gunpower based weapons were first used. The Cannon is a great Chinese invention (both on and off the Xiangqi board!). The Cannon as a chess piece is unique to Chinese Chess and variants derived from its lineage. (Such as Korean chess) If the primary European contribution to chess games is the invention of the powerful Queen, and the Japanese contribution is the invention of rules which allow one to use captured pieces as his/her own, then the Cannon, I believe, is the major Chinese contribution to the chess family of games. This piece combines the long-range mobility of line pieces and the penetrating power of leapers. It can strike at the opponent's positions from a distance like a Rook and penetrate through defensive lines to attack pieces behind them like a Knight. Rooks have long-range attack ability but can be obstructed easily with well defended pieces in their line of sight. Knights can 'see through' the opponent's defenses but can only attack from close range, where itself is often vulnerable. The Cannon combines the advantages of both line pieces and leapers in its attack. Tactically speaking, the interesting thing about the Cannon is that it is the only chess piece that can pin TWO pieces at the same time. This also means discovered attacks involving the Cannons can be more unpredictable. Two pieces in front of the Cannon have the potential to move off for the Cannon to strike at the opponent (With other chess pieces, only one piece would have this potential). When the Cannons double up to form a battery, their advantage over the Rooks is that they can directly strike two positions at once, with the Cannon at the rear using its companion in front as its screen, where the doubled Rooks can only attack one point.
random: please submit any descriptions of game variations to the editors using the 'contact form' at the top of the page. http://www.chessvariants.com/xiangqi.html Thanks!
Tony, I think you misunderstood what random was asking about. He's not offering a new variant; he is asking if we have the rules for Korean Chess. We do have them here: http://www.chessvariants.com/oriental.dir/koreanchess.html
can i copy the texts here to my homepage? i will claim the texts are copied from 'www.chessvariants.com' in my HP ng goi ar.....
http://wxf.hypermart.net/eg/index.html 'Deceptive Play in Xiangqi Openings And Countermeasures' I downloaded the free English e-book but do not know how to read its notation system Any helps?
Check out http://www.aikidoaus.com.au/dojo/docs/chinese_chess/notation.htm
Thanks, John! This is from another source I can use this and your reference to know of Chinese chess notation. >>From what I remember Lau just used a straightforward translation of >>the Chinese move notation which has been used for a long time. If you >>have in Chinese language books you can verify this. > > > I don't have Chinese books (as I unfortunately don't read Chinese); but > Lau used a pure algebraic notation. The standard notation uses a > system with the symbols +, -, = to denote moves forward, back, or side- > ward. Lau's notation is actually easier to follow but no one else uses it, > so the student has to discard it and learn the standard notation later. He simply uses english characters to represent the same thing. From what I could tell his notation is easily translatable into [WA]XF by replacing f,b,t with +,-,=. I may have the characters wrong, but in general he uses the Chinese notation with english characters just as [WA]XF uses chinese notation with mathematical symbols. You should learn the characters needed to read chinese notation. Its really only a few symbols more than the pieces. You have front, back, side, and the numbers 1-9.
www.aikidoaus.com.au by the way, this link leads me to an Aikido site. Aikido is a Japanese martial art. Interesting :) I practiced Aikikai aikido for a few months before. Aikikai aikido is the most smooth and soft type of Aikido. Do Aussy people practice Aikido?
It is a good start for beginners in understanding one of the greatest game, in my opinion, ever created. As to the question of Seongmo Yoon, the website with those free e-books on Chinese Chess requires a program called Adobe Acrobat to view. You can find the software free to download almost anywhere on the internet, just search for the program through google or you can probably find it on Download.com. It was a great site for would be chinese chess players...highly recommended: http://wxf.hypermart.net/eg/index.html Thanx Seongmo Yoon. hopes this comment helps.
IS there a way for you to include link to the online multiplayer 3D Chinese chess game I created? http://chess.hanamifx.com/
Hi, all xiangqi friends, i would like to introduce the following free online chess, come and join, all xiangqi players over the world. http://www.clubxiangqi.com cychong ccyacca@yahoo.com Malaysian
XiangQi is a very good game, the more you play it, the more you find it clever and elegant. Not able to read the chinese language, I found 4 very good books on XiangQi, written by David H.Li. The titles are : 'First Syllabus on XiangQi - Chinese Chess 1', 'Syllabus on Cannon - Chinese Chess 2', 'Syllabus on Elephant - Chinese Chess 3' 'Syllabus on Pawn - Chinese Chess 4' These books use the notation given by the WXF and greatly improved my knowledge and game level.
There wasn't any conclusions i could find for the game... but as a chinese, i admit that i like this game a lot even though i do not play it often...
What a site! For a lover of fairy chess etc. like me. Years ago I saw this beatiful chess set and wanted it, but could not afford to pay D. kr. 1.500 (appr. 300 dollars). This Christmas my girlfriend gave it to me! I never told her my wish, so it is simply the best Christmas present I have recived, ever. It is very beautiful, a smaller copy of the terracotta figures from the grave of Qin Shi Huang Di, first emperor of China - much more visual than Chinese characters. The ministers and guards are very alike, though (anyone else out there who has a set and knows which one has a split hair-do and which one does not?) She worried that it was not standard chess. I thought great that it is not, though rules did not follow (and I thought Chinese and Japanese chess were the same...), so we picked up some simple, and flawed rules on the Internet. I have played several games with my self or the kids. We have made three major mistakes: 1. The ministers (elephants) could leap (minor mistake actually). 2. I thought the way the horse moved was in a simple L-shape: One step orthogonally and two steps to the side - or two steps, then one step. This gives some other points where one cannot leap, including different opening options. 3. Great mistake: I thought the cannons could only capture a token directly behind another token (in stead of the great leap for cannon-kind of the real rules), which makes it a rather weak token in it self. Glad you set me straight on all points, though I will recommend my 'wrong variant', which gives a very complicated and defensive game (with some tendency to produce tied games). The 'wrong horse moves' I will recommend in general, for variation. Looking forward to testing out your variants and the Chorean chess on the board...
one rule in Xiangqi is : Perpetual check is forbidden. You cannot check your opponent more than three times in a row with the same piece and same board positions. But the software do not understand it. The device check me no-limitted in a row wiht the same piece and same board positions. i have to give up.
I have found a 'Chinese chess board' with 'material pieces': http://www.mastersgames.com/cat/board/chinese-chess.htm But it's expensive.
From: chinese-chess-xiang-qi.dev.java.net : '...Because of the huge number of players in China and the rest of Asia, Chinese Chess is 'the' most popular game in the world...' There is not support for this statement, and, in my personal opinion, it is not true, even if you are only talking about board games, and even if you are only talking about Chess and variants.
Roberto, I'd like to point out that as of right now, when one Googles 'chessvariants,' the first related page that comes up under the main listing is this Xiang-Qi page. If that isn't a good indicator of this game's popularity variant-wise, if not game-wise in general, I don't know what is. (Incidentally, a search for 'xiangqi' gives this page second in the list, and a search for 'xiang-qi' or 'chinese chess' gives it first.)
Compared with the Western chess, I find this game is a lot more exciting. Only 5 pawns with a distance between them make roads for pieces come to the enemy's territory and organize an attack. There are much less draws than in Western chess, and you cannot play passively hoping for a draw if you don't want to fight, the enemy's forces will overwhelm you soon. The battle here is more fiery than in its counterpart and draw is only achieved through a fight with a lot of exchanges. This game has less regard on material, you could be several pawns or one piece down but you have chances to attack the enemy's King, it is ok since the king is limited in His Royal Palace. Sacrifices of pieces are seen in almost every 3 games, and two rooks (the strongest offensive piece) sacrifice is seen in around, say, 5000 games.
One small suggestion would be a mention of Gabriel's totally different offering as Chinese Chess. As someone might pick it up in a thrift store, and find they'd made a mistake based on your excellent description, a warning seems considerate.
Mind you, Gabriel's version fascinates me as no one 'owns' pieces.
In reading the page on chinese chess which I delight in playing I observed that you attribute different two chinese language titles to the game. Actually there is only the one in so much as the Mandarin written title is the only chinese title and the Cantonese pronunciation (Cantonese is not a written language - except in bastardised script based on sound) the game is known as Jeung Kei (Jeunhg Kay, as you have it) which to put it another way is written by the Cantonese speaker in the same character form as that in Mandarin (the only true written language).
Hope this is of assistance should you consider any revision of text.
I enjoyed your site and the variant described.
Play Xiangqi section misses http://www.kurnik.org (one of the few places where you can play this game against other people with non-Chinese user interface)
Download a Free Xiangqi Book http://www.scribd.com [I have removed the link as it appears to be a copyrighted work. Please do not post such links on our site. Thanks. --Editors]
My Zillions implementation of Chinese Chess plays a good game, it also has Western style pieces as an option: http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chinesechess.htm Mats
I think you should add the rules about handicap game. Usually, the stronger player will play first and remove one or more of his pieces, but sometimes he can get something back to avoid a much too unfair game: 1.If a player removes a Knight, and move his Rook nearby to that place ('Rook out of the Forest'), it will be covered by an enemy Cannon, but the enemy Cannon cannot capture it. 2.If a player removes both Knights, his central Pawn ('Solid Pawn') cannot be captured before it makes at least one move, unless the capture is with a check. 3.If a player removes one Cannon, his other Cannon cannot be captured before it makes at least one move. 3.If a player removes a Rook, his Cannon and Knight cannot be captured before it makes at least one move.
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