Rated Comments for a Single Item

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...

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

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.