Thanks, H.G.!

If there was nothing unprotected in your Palace that was attacked by the Cannon, this is indeed not a chase, and thus a draw. In Asia rules a mate threat (even mate in one) is not considered a chase in itself; you really must threaten to capture something on the subsequent move for that. A frequently occurring case is a King behind a pinned Advisor (e.g. by a Rook or together with Elephant by a Cannon), threatened to be mated on the last rank by a Rook. To prevent the mate the King steps aside, but then a check with that same Rook from the front drives it back behind its Advisor, after which the Rook resumes its original location to threaten the back-rank mate. This counts as 1-check, 1-idle, and thus a draw. Even if the mating square contained an unprotected piece (say the other Elephant), the 1-check + 1-chase is also allowed (under the general rule that alternately chasing different pieces is allowed).

In one game of Chinese Chess I recently finished, afterwards I thought I might have defended better if a certain 3-fold repetition of position was allowed by the rules (and thus considered a draw), if my opponent didn't avoid it, in one particular sequence of moves I'd thought of. Srictly speaking there was no chasing (or checking) involved, but nor was the repetition voluntary on the part of the defender (me) if I was to avoid losing quickly.

The sequence I wrote of can be descibed as: 1) I move a minister (elephant) away from my palace's central line, and thus the opponent's cannon (in his own camp, on the central line) is no longer attacking any points in my palace. To fight this defence, 2) he puts a minister of his own on the central line in front of his cannon, each piece in his own palace, with the result that his cannon is attacking all the points on the central line in front of his own minister, including all those in my palace. To defend against this, 3) I would move my minister back to where it was, on my palace's central line, at which point his cannon no longer attacks the points on the central line behind my minister (in my palace) since my minister and his both occupy the middle line, in front of his cannon. To fight this defence, 4) he moves his minister away from in front of his cannon, and once again his cannon attacks the points behind my minister on the central line (in my palace). At this point a repetition may have already occured once, depending where his minister went to, but if things keep proceeding in this fashion then a 3-fold repetition would eventually occur.

It's my guess, based on what you've written H.G., that this sort of sequence would be (by Asian rules) ruled a draw, though once again the rules used for the Game Courier preset I was using state simply that 'repetition is to be avoided'.

Yes, repetition that doesn't violate the checking and chasing rules, or where both players violate it equally, is a draw in Chinese Chess (according to 'Asia rules'). Perpetually checking is considered a worse offense than chasing non-royals. So if both players are perpetually checking, it is a draw. If only one is perpetually checking, he will lose, even if the other is chasing other pieces, and has some check amongst his moves. And even if the checking is the only legal move he has. If both players are perpetually chasing, it is also draw. Even if one chases a Rook, and the other a Horse.

I think it is the 3rd repetition that counts, like in Chess.

Note that the rules are actually far more complex than what is stated in the article. For one, it is not just back-and-forth moving, but general repetition of positions, like in FIDE Chess. (Although, like in Chess, back-and-forth moving is by far the most common.) The game result is determined from all positions since the first occurrence of the position. Checking is easily defined, but chasing is quite complex. Basically it is creating new attacks on the same unprotected piece, where both attacking and protecting is defined in terms of legal moves. (I.e. an attack must be able to legally capture the piece, and a protector must be able to legally recapture after that.) If you force a repetition by creating new attacks alternately on different pieces, this is OK. If you alternately attack the same piece with different pieces with every move in the repeat cycle, you are in violation.

There are many refinements to this basic rule:

• Attacks with King or Pawn do not count
• Attacks on an unpromoted Pawn do not count
• The ability of a piece to (legally) capture its attacker is considered equivalent to protection
• A Rook always counts as unprotected against attacks by Horse or Cannon
• Attacks are not considered new if they only were illegal before the move because they would not resolve an existing check

@ Fergus:

I don't know if this has been asked before, but it is not entirely clear to me whether it is illegal to draw by theoretically indefinitely repeating the position during a game, by a series of moves that involve neither checks nor any pursuing attacks on pieces. I cannot yet find a reference to this exact situation on this webpage (nor in a book I own, even). However, the preset I'm playing on right now states that "repetition is to be avoided" (not entirely clear to me that this is an official rule, or one just used by the preset, if it's even enforced by it).

The modifier 'y' is a 'range toggle', and does not affect direction. I introduced the convention that directions in continuation legs are always encoded in the K system, so that fs always means diagonally forward. If you really would want a second W step that could go to both the D and the F squares (which is rare, because these are non-symmetry-related paths),you can always write ffsW to prevent the f+s are parsed as one direction. (Or actually write nothing at all, because the default directionality for a continuation leg is 'all directions except back to the square you came from'. So aW would do it.)

Thus afsW is the XQ Horse, which still is a stepper on the second leg, while yafsW is an Aanca, (that cannot move to the W squares, but can be blocked there) which slides in the second leg. And afsR would be a 'Bent Rook', which can slide in both legs, and thus decide where it takes the corner,making it an enormously powerfull piece.

Noob qustion (again):Why the knight doesn't need an y modifier for turning 45 degrees? I mean what does ayfW means then? From what I understand in your spelling H.G., afsW means that you have passed (somehow unblocked) throught the dababah square!

The part I am not very happy about is the description of the non-facing rule for the Kings in Betza notation, though. For clarity this should have been fcR, where the zonal restriction of the King would suppress everything outside the Palace, but can make an exception for moves that land on a King. But unfortunately that would leave fD captures inside its own Palace, when the King is on the back rank.

I solved that now by defining the forward slide as starting with a lame leap of 3 squares (to make sure the King gets out of its own Palace) before sliding as a Rook for the remaining part of the path. This leads to an ugly multi-leg description, first two move-only Wazir steps, and then a range-toggle ('y') to turn the Wazir atom into a Rook. It would have been nice if there had been a Betza modifier 'k' to indicate 'capture king only'. Then the move could have been written as fkR. But this is a very exceptional case, and it is probably not wise to dedicate one of the few still available letters for such an uncommon task. Perhaps it would be better to allow diacritical markings to commonly used modifiers to indicate they are somehow restricted. Like c" for 'capture, but only royals', and p' for 'must hop, but not over enemy pieces'. The full Xiangqi King move would then be Wfc"R.

Extra scripting

To get the above result two JavaScript functions that the general diagram script optionally uses had to be supplied:

• BadZone(x,y,piece,color) to confine pieces to a limited part of the board
• Shade(x,y) to define a board coloration different from the normal checkering

Both these functions are expected to return 0 or 1, in the latter case to indicate whether squares are dark or light, in the former case whether the piece is not allowed at the given location.

I like all the possible (and exotic) endgames that can arise in this game. My chess friends and I that play this variant now & then are still at the stage of learning to avoid gross threats.

A valuation system given by H.T.Lau: R=9; CA=4.5; N=4; CO=2; M=2; P(after crosses river)=2; P(before crosses river)=1. Bear in mind that this is just for the context of this game, as naturally a rook would be of lower value in a chess-like game played with a board of these dimensions.

A Soviet animation with Vietnamese screenwriter and assistants, based upon an Vietnamese fairy tale or myth (Russian language). Skipped to 1:35:

https://youtu.be/_7jsKUL4jDY?t=1m35s

The Lord of the Sky is playing chess with Mistress Drought for the Earth's water.

The game they are playing is clearly Xiang-Qi (as we know, in Vietnam they play the same chess, as in China, unlike Korea with a clearly different version). However, there is something strange about the board: on the place of the River, there are Palace-like crossed squares. Is it an actual way to mark Xiang-Qi board in Vietnam, or it's merely an animator's mistake?

Hi,

I would like to propose you a very new Xiangqi online version:

http://www.jocly.com/xiangqi

Different skins are available for 2D / 3D views, and original / western pieces.

This game can be played on our platform (http://www.jocly.com/) but also embeded in any web page. You can even change the rules or the design by modifying our initial game with some local pieces/board tuning on your site.

Our goal is to let anyone make any chess variant for playing, testing rules, plus providing a set of tools to show or analyse games.

And we need experts to validate and expand our work :)

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Any question will be answered.

Thanks,

jerome

By the way, my implementation of Chinese Chess is an example of what tweaking can accomplish when programming Zillions. It is much superior to the standard Zillions version, and quite a strong opponent. It is also possible to use  Zillions to build an opening database in a directory tree of Zillions games. The directories are named according to the variation ("Central Cannon (vs) Single Horse", etc.). To see that variation one simply double-clicks the game. 
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chinesechess.htm
/Mats

Although this site has an interesting table of contents, I could find no actual content at it.

Dear fans,

   Do you like to learn Xiangqi (Chinese chess)?  Please visit:

                http://www.chinese-chess-xiangqi.com

I found an image of a Chinese chess variant
(http://www.hudong.com/versionview/idl,pAUWBxBWVKVEd2U,kVZZA) that I don't
recognize and wonder if anyone knows what one it is.  I have searched on
the Chessvariants' website but have found nothing similar.

From what I can see, the board has been lengthened by two ranks on each
side of the river, the extended range of the elephant inscribed on the
board, and the governor used for both sides as the royal piece in the
fortress; the generals (two per side) are positioned for a new function,
it
seems, outside the fortress.

I agree that longer repeat cycles are quite rare. Although they would get more frequent when you allow them, but not 4-ply cycles, because the losing player would start to especially seek them in order to dodge the 4-ply rule. I tested in engine games, and between an engine that knows the rule, and one that doesn't, about 13% of the games end in a perpetual chase. (when both know about perpetual checking. If one of them does not know that rule, he would lose almost every game by doing it.)

The point is of course that it becomes progressively more difficult to keep chasing the piece for a longer number of moves. But this would typically occur when the chased side does not know that chasing is illegal, and desparately tries to escape it. (E.g. a passed Pawn chased by a Rook along files, running back and forth over the full width of the board.)

Is the repetition rule really valid for *all* moves, and not only for consecutive repetitions? I didn't know that, because then the notion of 'chase' loses its meaning. Anyway, I don't think it's necessary to check other repetitions than the consecutive. This is the form of repetition that causes problems, and non-consecutive three-move repetitions are nearly non-existent.
/Mats

Well, Xiangqi servers are infamous for poor implementation of the rules (not surprisingly, when these rules are next to infinitely complex).

One of my points was that it is not just for moving back and forth, but for any repeat, no matter how far in the past. This in definite disagreement with what you said.

But your idea of providing a warning is a good one, I think. Except that I think it would be better to give the warning already on the first repetition, and terminate the game (with unknown score) on the third repetition. Even if the moves were with a King or Pawn (because it is still a draw then, and only if the King or Pawn did not discover threats by other pieces, which is again complex to test.)  The warning could be something like:

WARNING! You are repeating a previous position. If both of you will keep this up, the game will be declared lost to the side which is forcing the other to repeat (by checking, or perpetually threatening a favorable capture of the same piece).

H.G., I think my summary is good enough, because it is only a matter of putting an end to the repetition process. Whether the third repetition should result in a draw or a win, needn't be evaluated by the preset. The preset merely prevents the third repetition, if it isn't made by a king, or a soldier. It's a clever solution. The players can decide to continue, or the losing player may give up instead of continuing the repetition, or the players could agree on a draw, depending on what the rules say. I have played on the Xiangqi sites, and they brutally prevent three-fold repetition, or judge it as a loss to the repeating party. 
/Mats

I don't think you give a correct summary of those Xiangi rules. At least, not for the rules I know ('Asia rules'). For one, the condition is for causing any repeated position, not just consecutive. (So just like in FIDE Chess.) The difference with FIDE rules is that a 3rd repeat is not automatically draw, but can also be judged as win or loss. A side that is somehow forcing the repetition will be ruled to lose, where forcing by checking is considered a worse offense than forcing by merely attacking a superior or unprotected non-royal piece ('chasing'). So that if both are continuously forcing each other, the checking side loses. To be counted as a perpetual check or chase, every move of the repeat loop must be a forcing move threatening the same piece; if there is only one 'quiet' move (even a mate-in-1 threat) in the loop, or a move that only threatens another piece, (even if that is a check amongst chases), it is not considered perpetual check or chase.

The exact rules for which moves are to beconsidered forcing, and which not, are so complex that it requires a sizable AI to implement them. (See http://www.clubxiangqi.com/rules/asiarule.htm )

China mainland rules seem to be even more complex (even mate threats counting as forcing), and I have never been able to find an English description of them.

Fergus, one very important rule is not implemented in your Xiangqi preset. Players are not allowed to move back and forth so that the position is repeated three times (immediately after one another, not overall, as in Fide-chess). If there were no such prevention of repetition, then Xiangqi would be much more drawish. 

Would it be possible to implement this rule so that the player who tries to repeat the position for the third time is prevented from doing this move? Exceptions are if he makes the move with a soldier, or with the general, when he can continue play.

There are cases when players are allowed to go back and forth, when they both go back and forth between different squares, but in this case the players can agree on a draw, so your prevention of the third move only serves as a reminder that it is a draw.
/Mats

Here's my new video on how to play Chinese Chess:

'Junk Kay'

Actually, it's pronounced without the 'k' sound in the first word. So
you might want to revise the sentence to read 'Jun Kay' (although it
sounds more correct pheonetically as 'Jerng Kay'.)

This is very good introduction to ÏóÆå¡£Thank you!

I have one suggestion here about the meaning of ½«. it is not 'will' or
'going to' here, although it does have such meanings. The character by
itself means something similar to 'to lead' as a verb, or it could mean
'leader/general' as an abbreviation for ½«Áì. It is also a military rank
nowadays. ½« is pronounced with the fourth tone here whereas when it's
used to express the meaning of 'will' or 'going to', it's pronounced
with the third tone.

The defensive pieces required a new approach in material evaluation, in my Xiangqi engine HaQiKi D. Rather than having a fixed value, their value is strongly dependent on the attacking material the opponent has. To implement that I use a material table that is indexed by the number of attacking pieces of each type for one side, and the number of defensive pieces of the other side.

In my simpler engine MaxQi (a dedicated version of Fairy-Max that can only play Xiangqi) I just use fixed piece values, and then itregularly happens that it converts its entire advantage to defensive pieces, thinking it is 800 centi-Pawn ahead, while in fact it has zero winning chance...

An aspect of Chinese Chess is that certain pieces are primarily defensive(Elephants and Ministers). Also that the both players need to maintain offensive pieces to prosecute the game.

These values can tax a simple depth-search program. Demanding at least a few extra computational considerations.

GD, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)#Computers_and_Go

Also check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_and_mathematics

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go

Go should really have a page here at TCVP. Particularly since there are
several variants which are based upon this game and its equipment.

'Chess&X.player' cites the state-space complexity of 8x8 chess at around 10^50. Last year 'Singh' claims there are this following many states of the universe in its entirety: 
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18994
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18940
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18943
The first comment says ''silly'' but the probably bleak future indicated in the other two of Singh is not so silly.  'Chess&X.player's computational complexity in the comment here 29.August.2009, actually allowing variantly larger boards etc., is open-ended and he does not try to give numbers. And he ends up in the comment, admitting he is excellent OrthoChess player, like some remaining couple of CVPage stand-patters, talking as if OrthoChess is some one given thing to stay unchanged forever more. Hey, thanks for neat statisitics and please consider becoming a member for something different to look at for a change. Now we know there's more to life than Knife-Knight, Fork-Bishop, and Spood-fed-Rook. 'Chess&X.player' concludes that Go outdoes them all, and haven't we heard that immortal truth before?! But never frequently enough.

I've been thinking about the question of whether Chess or Xiangqi (Chinese
Chess) is strictly speaking the more complex game when viewed from the
perspective of complexity theory.

For more information on Chess and Xiangqi, see

Chess:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
http://www.chessvariants.org/d.chess/chess.html

Xiangqi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_chess
http://www.chessvariants.com/xiangqi.html

Using the ideas of complexity theory, the complexity of Chess and Xiangqi
can be estimated and calculated quantitatively. In general, there are 3
different kinds of complexity a deterministic board game like Chess or
Xiangqi may have:

1 State-space Complexity: the maximum number of possible positions in the
game. It is also possible to calculate an upper bound for state-space
complexity which includes illegal positions as well. The upper bound is
generally speaking much easier to calculate than the exact value, which is
often only given as an accurate estimation.

It is generally calculated that the state-space complexity of Chess is
around 10^50 (10 to the power of 50, or 1 with 50 zeros after it, or one
hundred trillion trillion trillion trillion different positions), while the
state-space complexity of Xiangqi is around 10^48, 100 times less than that
of Chess. This is because despite a larger board (9 times 10 vs. 8 times
8), Xiangqi pieces are generally speaking less powerful than their Chess
equivalents and for many pieces the space over which it can potentially
move is severely restricted. In Chess, the King, Queen, Rook and Knight can
potentially move to every square on the board, the Pawn can potentially
reach more than 6/8th of all the squares (though unlikely to move that much
in a real game), and even the Bishop can reach half of all the squares. In
Xiangqi the General can only stay inside the Palace and move to 9 different
intersections, the Advisor can only move to 5 different intersections and
the Elephant only to 7 different intersections.

Another factor is that the Xiangqi board, having 9 files instead of
Chess's 8, is symmetrical in the left-right direction. This means the left
and right hand sides in Xiangqi are essentially the same, so different
board positions may just be a trivial reflection of the other. This
decreases the effective state-space complexity of Xiangqi by a factor of 2.
In Chess on the other hand, the Kingside and the Queenside are not just a
trivial reflection of each other since the distance the King has to the
edge of the board is different for the left and right hand sides.

Therefore despite having 90 intersections on the Xiangqi board vs. only 64
squares for Chess, the total number of possible positions is around 100
times more in Chess than Xiangqi, 10^50 vs. 10^48.

2 Game-tree Complexity: roughly speaking this is the total number of
possible games one can potentially play with a particular version of board
game. This is different from state-space complexity and the value is
generally speaking far larger because state-space complexity only takes
space and position into account, while game-tree complexity analyses the
actual moves in a game and hence also puts time into account. Generally
speaking, there are many different ways, in terms of playing the game, to
reach a particular position on the board. For instance, the opening
position on the chess board with Ng1-f3 and e2-e4 (moving the King's
Knight and King's Pawn out) can be reached via two different
'game-trees': Nf3 first or e4 first, and the number of possible
game-trees for a given board position increases dramatically as one
progresses into the game and the position becomes much more complex.

Generally it is estimated that the total number of possible games in Chess
is around 10^123 (or 1 with 123 zeros after it), while for Xiangqi it is
10^150, which is 100 million billion times more than Chess. For comparison,
consider that the total number of atoms in the observable universe is only
around 10^80.

There are far more possible games in Xiangqi since it is played on a
larger board (90 instead of 64 spaces), and generally a game of Xiangqi
lasts for more moves than a game of Chess. However, given that the Xiangqi
board is left-right symmetrical and therefore left-hand side play is
identical to right-hand side play, and that since Xiangqi pieces are
generally less powerful and the General is restricted to within the Palace,
the larger number of possible games in the purely technical sense becomes
relatively trivial by the endgame stage, since real play is likely to be
always focused around the General's Palace, and different moves elsewhere
on the board essentially converges to the same kind of endgames. In other
words, whereas in the earlier phase of the game the game-tree of possible
moves branches out, by the endgame in Xiangqi they begin to converge into
one-another, and Xiangqi games generally end in relatively similar
positions (major pieces and pawns around the General's Palace and a
relatively exposed General).

In Chess game-trees also tend to converge more by the endgame but since
the King can move to anywhere on the board and there is the possibility of
pawn promotion, the game converges to a significantly smaller extent than
Xiangqi. Also the approximate estimation for the game-tree complexity of
Chess does not take into account the re-divergence of the game-tree if
enough pawns are promoted into pieces in the endgame. Although in real play
this tends to be an unlikely scenario, in technical calculations of game
complexity this factor should be included. In addition, when the game-tree
complexity of Chess is calculated, unlikely endgame scenarios, such as the
game dragging on unnecessarily for dozens of extra moves that are in
practice trivial, are also included.

Therefore effectively speaking despite the technically higher game-tree
complexity of Xiangqi, I think Chess is actually the more complex game of
the two.

3 Computational Complexity: a third way to calculate game complexity is to
consider how much computational steps are required to play a Chess or
Xiangqi game by a Chess or Xiangqi engine/computer as the actual size of
the game increases in space. E.g. if the Chess board size doubles, how much
more computational power is required? In this both Chess and Xiangqi are
very similar in that computational difficulty increases exponentially (in
terms of the number of calculational steps required to play the game) with
board size. Thus both games are said to be inside the complexity class
called EXPTIME (stands for 'exponential time').

Personally despite being an ethnic Chinese and proud of Chinese culture in
general, I think Chess is a better game than Xiangqi and I'm a better
player in Chess than in Xiangqi. Though of course the Chinese game of
Weiqi/Go is far more complex than either of these games mentioned here.

I just produced a special Xiangqi version of my general variant engine Fairy-Max. Xiangqi is sufficiently different, because of its subdivided board, deviating promotion, stalemate an repetition rules, to warrant a separate engine, rather a further generalization of Fairy-Max.

The engine is called MaxQi, and is availabe as source code and Windows excutable from my website (download link http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/MaxQi.zip ). It uses WinBoard protocol to communicate its moves, and so can be run under WinBoard 4.3 ('WinBoard_F'). Other WB engines are HoiXinagqi and TJxiangqi. MaxQi is definitely a lot stronger than HoiXiangqi; I have not had it play many games against TJxiangqi yet, but I expect MaxQi to be weaker than that.

The illustrations of sets do a lot to put this game into its historic and geographic context.

Has anyone else noticed that the Bare Facing rule is an example, many centuries before the rise of music downloads, of a restriction on file sharing?

I'm going to share my speculations on the origin of Chinese Chess here, and since it is speculation, I am adding it here instead of adding it as part of the page content. First, I'm certain that Chinese Chess is related to Chaturanga or Shatranj in some way. Their pieces and rules are too similar for me to buy into the idea that Chinese Chess arose completely independently of the Indo-European Chess tradition. Besides that, there was trade between India and China along the silk road. So it makes sense that word of a game that had become popular in one place would spread to the other.

From my experience playing Chess, Chinese Chess, and Shatranj, it seems to me that both Chess and Chinese Chess are better games than Shatranj, and the idea arises that both may be improvements on Chaturanga or some game like it. The main problem with Chaturanga/Shatranj is that the pieces are too weak and slow, making the game long and tedious. Chess fixes this by replacing the weakest pieces with stronger pieces and by giving Pawns a double move. Chinese Chess fixes this by confining its royal piece to the palace, using the weakest pieces only for defense, and adding the Cannon, which is a fairly fast and powerful piece. The result is that Chinese Chess tends to be fast and decisive, much moreso than Chaturanga/Shatranj. Given this, it seems likely to me that Chaturanga is closer to the original game than Chinese Chess is.

Besides this, it seems more likely to me that Chinese Chess was a transformation of Chaturanga than vice versa. Consider this. Chinese Chess could be described as being played on a board of 90 points, while Chaturanga could be described as being played on a board of 64 squares. If someone in India heard the 90 points description and tried to recreate the game, he wouldn't likely make the 64 square ashtapada, but if someone in China heard about a game played on a 64 square ashtapada, he may assume from his experience with Go that pieces go on the intersections instead of inside the squares. This might immediately lead him to thinking that the game has two Counselors instead of just the one in Chaturanga. If he also heard that the game had 16 pieces to each side, he might have thought that 7 Pawns didn't seem right, settle on 5 as the more natural number for a rank of 9 points, and then assuming that his information on Chaturanga had been garbled, set to work trying to think of what the two remaining pieces might be. Splitting the board in two, thereby adding an extra rank, and the other changes may have followed from attempts to improve the game.

One last point concerns the names Chaturanga and Xiangqi. The former, meaning the four branches of the military, seems like a name the original creator might naturally give to a war game. The latter, meaning elephant strategy board game, seems to have been named for one feature that perhaps struck someone as unusual or significant. This example of synecdoche in naming is the sort of name I might expect from people who adopted a game from another culture. Even the English name of Chess is an example of synecdoche, for it goes back to the Persian Shah, meaning King.

My speculations have been based on an analysis of the games and their names. If it were contradicted by historical or archaeological evidence, that evidence would be more relevant. Although there are those who would disagree with my conclusions, my conclusions are in line with the received opinion that the origins of Chess and Chinese Chess go back to Chaturanga.

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.

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

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]

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

I have found a 'Chinese chess board' with 'material pieces':
http://www.mastersgames.com/cat/board/chinese-chess.htm
But it's expensive.

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.

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...

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...