Our Featured Variant : Try the Chinese game of Xiangqi, one of the most popular and enduring Chess variants in the world.

Ratings and Comments for:
Yáng Qí

The following are readers' comments and ratings for the page Yáng Qí.

Date Rating Comment

26 Jun 2001 None Fergus, I've talked Jonathan a bit more. By sound in Cantonese, Yáng Qí is identical to the informal term for Western Chess (Western in the cultural sense, not the direction sense), but is written with different characters. Reading what you wrote literally (and he is familiar with both character sets), he would end up with Sun Chess or Solar Chess.

21 Jun 2001 None
I changed one rule regarding Pawn promotion. A Pawn may now promote only to a captured piece. When a captured piece is unavailable, a Pawn may not advance to the last rank. This change has been included in updates to both editions of the ZRF. The Oriental Edition includes new piece sets and a new character for the Vao, a character which means arrow (noun) and vow (verb).

--Fergus

16 Jun 2001 None
I have now uploaded the oriental version, and a link to it is at the bottom of the Yáng Qí page.

--Fergus

16 Jun 2001 None Although I'm not putting the game on an authentic Chinese Chess board, I have designed a new board that uses lines and points but also aids the visualization of diagonal moves with diagonal lines. It resembles a Chinese Chess board, and I further painted it to highlight the special areas on a Chinese Chess board. It is designed so that the diagonal lines do not add to the number of intersections. Diagonal movement can occur along a diagonal line or along a road between two diagonal lines. I have also designed a new set of wooden disk Chinese pictographic pieces to go with the board. I used zongwen.com to find appropriate characters, and I downloaded images from ocrat.com. I used photos of wood samples for the background. It all looks very nice, and it should please those who want an oriental look and feel, but I am too lazy to post it all right now. So I will take care of it later. --Fergus

16 Jun 2001 None According to zhongwen.com, another character is much more commonly used for west and western. This character is transliterated as xi with a bar above the i. It shows a bird roosting, which suggests sunset and hence the direction of the setting sun, the west. So Western Chess would be Xi Qí. The character I used was not given as a synonym for west, though yin and yang express so many different opposites, it wouldn't surprise me if yang somehow also meant west. But it also means south side of the hill, so maybe it doesn't mean west. Anyway, yángqě, which looks very similar in transliteration, does mean western. Notice that the slash above the i is in the opposite direction. I think it is a Chinese transliteration of Yankee. Also, if your friend is not from mainland China, he might not be reading it correctly. Mainland China has begun using simplified version of Chinese characters, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan still commonly use the older, more detailed characters. The character I used is the simplified version of yáng. --Fergus

16 Jun 2001 None I'll ask Jonathan when he gets back from vacation. Mind you, I'm not at all sure the characters you are using is the standard Chinese term for Western Chess, but apparently Yáng, among other things, is used to mean things that came from the West, and in context, Qí means Chess.
PBA

16 Jun 2001 None Hmmmm... so what would the proper Chinese phrase be for "Westernized Chinese Chess" or "Dis-Oriented Chinese Chess"?

15 Jun 2001 None I asked my office mate, who is ethnic Chinese from Malaysia, how he would interpret the Chinese Characters you placed on the the top of the page. He came out with "Western Chess", by which he meant Orthochess! (Mind you, Jonathan is a programmer, not a linguist.)
PBA

15 Jun 2001 None I'm glad you like the game. You can play it on a Chinese board if you want to, but I'm not going to put it on one, because the Chinese board is ill-suited for long-range diagonal pieces like the Bishop and Canon. The checkered board makes it easier to see how these pieces move. -- Fergus

15 Jun 2001 Good This variant is a really good idea! The board and pieces also look very professional. Might I suggest, since it's already on a 9 X 10 field, making it look more like a Chinese board? Put the pieces on the intersections, make a river and fortress (even if you don't use them), and make the pieces look like discs with Chinese characters on them. This last suggestion might be the most difficult, but it would make the game look more 'Chinese.' Tim Bostick

12 Jun 2001 None Part of my perspective on Chess is from the aesthetics of mathematical objects. From this perspective, Chess is a more aesthetically pleasing mathematical object than Chinese Chess, and this is where the imbalance between orthogonal and diagonal movement comes in. As to its impact on gameplay, that is a separate issue. It may not hurt gameplay as much as it hurts the aesthetic qualities of the game. Another issue is that I am simply more used to the gameplay of Chess than I am to the gameplay of Chinese Chess. So I have a tendency to favor the game mechanics of Chess over the game mechanics of Chinese Chess. Yáng Qí can be taken as an improvement on Chinese Chess mainly by people who already favor Western Chess over Chinese Chess. If you love both games, then you can just take it as a game in its own right, as you do. --Fergus

11 Jun 2001 Excellent This is a very nice game, but it really doesn't play anything like Xiangqi. The list of flaws you give, I would merely consider characteristics. I've played a certain amount of Xiangqi, and I've always found that the various parts of the game fit together into a very enjoyable whole. You seem to have this platonic ideal of a Chess game that you compare all chess games against. I see nothing wrong with a game with mostly orthogonally moving pieces, many weak pieces, and limited defensive ability. Playing Xiangqi is the art of the attack, and is a different, but to me no way inferior pleasure, than playing Orthochess.
All that aside, taken as its own game in its own right, Yáng Qí is a very nice game that plays very cleanly. So while I am not sure I would actually consider it a Xiangqi variant, I do consider Yáng Qí a very nice game indeed, with its own feel that is neither Xiangqi or Orthochess.
PBA

11 Jun 2001 None I appreciate the positive comments on Yáng Qí. Regarding the King-swap, allowing it only once would undermine its main purpose, which is to move one Canon and one Bishop to squares of the opposite color. I think I may prefer giving pieces additional powers to giving them one-time-only special moves. It cuts down on the bookkeeping, and I like that. Also, unlike castling, it can be useful multiple times. Once you castle once, you have generally connected your rooks and moved your King to a safe corner. Castling a second time usually won't gain you anything. But swapping places with pieces can, such as during the endgame when you're down to one Bishop or Canon and need to switch its color. Also, retaining this power doesn't affect the character of the game very much, because pieces eventually move away from the King as they move to attack the enemy King, and it can't be used during check. In the games I have played against Zillions, I think that having this power has enhanced the game. --Fergus

11 Jun 2001 Excellent From an aesthetic perspective, I find this game very pleasing -- the arrays have perfect symmetry, along with a nice balancing of orthogonally and diagonally moving pieces.
The number of powerful leaping pieces makes defense quite difficult, and the one game I played was quite violent and dramatic. However that might have been due to my inexperience playing the game.
I like the King's leap idea which is vastly simpler than castling. However I would have only allowed such a move once per game. Overall though, a nice simplification of Western Chess, using Paos and Vaos.
--D. Howe

Date	Rating	Comment
26 Jun 2001	None	Fergus, I've talked Jonathan a bit more. By sound in Cantonese, Yáng Qí is identical to the informal term for Western Chess (Western in the cultural sense, not the direction sense), but is written with different characters. Reading what you wrote literally (and he is familiar with both character sets), he would end up with Sun Chess or Solar Chess.
21 Jun 2001	None	I changed one rule regarding Pawn promotion. A Pawn may now promote only to a captured piece. When a captured piece is unavailable, a Pawn may not advance to the last rank. This change has been included in updates to both editions of the ZRF. The Oriental Edition includes new piece sets and a new character for the Vao, a character which means arrow (noun) and vow (verb). --Fergus
16 Jun 2001	None	I have now uploaded the oriental version, and a link to it is at the bottom of the Yáng Qí page. --Fergus
16 Jun 2001	None	Although I'm not putting the game on an authentic Chinese Chess board, I have designed a new board that uses lines and points but also aids the visualization of diagonal moves with diagonal lines. It resembles a Chinese Chess board, and I further painted it to highlight the special areas on a Chinese Chess board. It is designed so that the diagonal lines do not add to the number of intersections. Diagonal movement can occur along a diagonal line or along a road between two diagonal lines. I have also designed a new set of wooden disk Chinese pictographic pieces to go with the board. I used zongwen.com to find appropriate characters, and I downloaded images from ocrat.com. I used photos of wood samples for the background. It all looks very nice, and it should please those who want an oriental look and feel, but I am too lazy to post it all right now. So I will take care of it later. --Fergus
16 Jun 2001	None	According to zhongwen.com, another character is much more commonly used for west and western. This character is transliterated as xi with a bar above the i. It shows a bird roosting, which suggests sunset and hence the direction of the setting sun, the west. So Western Chess would be Xi Qí. The character I used was not given as a synonym for west, though yin and yang express so many different opposites, it wouldn't surprise me if yang somehow also meant west. But it also means south side of the hill, so maybe it doesn't mean west. Anyway, yángqě, which looks very similar in transliteration, does mean western. Notice that the slash above the i is in the opposite direction. I think it is a Chinese transliteration of Yankee. Also, if your friend is not from mainland China, he might not be reading it correctly. Mainland China has begun using simplified version of Chinese characters, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan still commonly use the older, more detailed characters. The character I used is the simplified version of yáng. --Fergus
16 Jun 2001	None	I'll ask Jonathan when he gets back from vacation. Mind you, I'm not at all sure the characters you are using is the standard Chinese term for Western Chess, but apparently Yáng, among other things, is used to mean things that came from the West, and in context, Qí means Chess. PBA
16 Jun 2001	None	Hmmmm... so what would the proper Chinese phrase be for "Westernized Chinese Chess" or "Dis-Oriented Chinese Chess"?
15 Jun 2001	None	I asked my office mate, who is ethnic Chinese from Malaysia, how he would interpret the Chinese Characters you placed on the the top of the page. He came out with "Western Chess", by which he meant Orthochess! (Mind you, Jonathan is a programmer, not a linguist.) PBA
15 Jun 2001	None	I'm glad you like the game. You can play it on a Chinese board if you want to, but I'm not going to put it on one, because the Chinese board is ill-suited for long-range diagonal pieces like the Bishop and Canon. The checkered board makes it easier to see how these pieces move. -- Fergus
15 Jun 2001	Good	This variant is a really good idea! The board and pieces also look very professional. Might I suggest, since it's already on a 9 X 10 field, making it look more like a Chinese board? Put the pieces on the intersections, make a river and fortress (even if you don't use them), and make the pieces look like discs with Chinese characters on them. This last suggestion might be the most difficult, but it would make the game look more 'Chinese.' Tim Bostick
12 Jun 2001	None	Part of my perspective on Chess is from the aesthetics of mathematical objects. From this perspective, Chess is a more aesthetically pleasing mathematical object than Chinese Chess, and this is where the imbalance between orthogonal and diagonal movement comes in. As to its impact on gameplay, that is a separate issue. It may not hurt gameplay as much as it hurts the aesthetic qualities of the game. Another issue is that I am simply more used to the gameplay of Chess than I am to the gameplay of Chinese Chess. So I have a tendency to favor the game mechanics of Chess over the game mechanics of Chinese Chess. Yáng Qí can be taken as an improvement on Chinese Chess mainly by people who already favor Western Chess over Chinese Chess. If you love both games, then you can just take it as a game in its own right, as you do. --Fergus
11 Jun 2001	Excellent	This is a very nice game, but it really doesn't play anything like Xiangqi. The list of flaws you give, I would merely consider characteristics. I've played a certain amount of Xiangqi, and I've always found that the various parts of the game fit together into a very enjoyable whole. You seem to have this platonic ideal of a Chess game that you compare all chess games against. I see nothing wrong with a game with mostly orthogonally moving pieces, many weak pieces, and limited defensive ability. Playing Xiangqi is the art of the attack, and is a different, but to me no way inferior pleasure, than playing Orthochess. All that aside, taken as its own game in its own right, Yáng Qí is a very nice game that plays very cleanly. So while I am not sure I would actually consider it a Xiangqi variant, I do consider Yáng Qí a very nice game indeed, with its own feel that is neither Xiangqi or Orthochess. PBA
11 Jun 2001	None	I appreciate the positive comments on Yáng Qí. Regarding the King-swap, allowing it only once would undermine its main purpose, which is to move one Canon and one Bishop to squares of the opposite color. I think I may prefer giving pieces additional powers to giving them one-time-only special moves. It cuts down on the bookkeeping, and I like that. Also, unlike castling, it can be useful multiple times. Once you castle once, you have generally connected your rooks and moved your King to a safe corner. Castling a second time usually won't gain you anything. But swapping places with pieces can, such as during the endgame when you're down to one Bishop or Canon and need to switch its color. Also, retaining this power doesn't affect the character of the game very much, because pieces eventually move away from the King as they move to attack the enemy King, and it can't be used during check. In the games I have played against Zillions, I think that having this power has enhanced the game. --Fergus
11 Jun 2001	Excellent	From an aesthetic perspective, I find this game very pleasing -- the arrays have perfect symmetry, along with a nice balancing of orthogonally and diagonally moving pieces. The number of powerful leaping pieces makes defense quite difficult, and the one game I played was quite violent and dramatic. However that might have been due to my inexperience playing the game. I like the King's leap idea which is vastly simpler than castling. However I would have only allowed such a move once per game. Overall though, a nice simplification of Western Chess, using Paos and Vaos. --D. Howe

Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008

Ratings and Comments for:Yáng Qí

Ratings and Comments for:
Yáng Qí