Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Informative overview for the newcomer to Xiangqi, however, the descriptions
assume the reader is already familiar with regular chess.
Kim, Cape Town, South Africa

Hi:

The statement that 'You cannot put the opponent in check more than 3 times
in a row with the same piece without either side moving any other piece' is
incorrect.  Rather than the number of checks being limited, it's the number
of repeating 'cycles' (which is three cycles, or a triple-repetition, which
in most cases, six checks).

This common misconception seems to stem from Lau's book, Chinese Chess.  We
would be glad to discuss with you further on this issue.  My e-mail is
[email protected]


Dave Woo
Chinese Chess Institute
USA

I have come to learn the werstern version of chess since i was 6 years old.
From that time on, i have allways felt a passion for the game. Knowing that
there is more than one version of this game, it inspired me to think widely
and come up with other forms and variants of this brilliant game. One can
experiment with the numbers of squares, the forms of squares (how about a
great triagle, with three parties?), the number of pieces, the movements of
those pieces, and even swapping movement capabilities (how about giving the
Bishop the capability to jump like a knight, every other turn - after each
time you have made a move with that piece, its movement-ability changes
from knight to Bishop, from Bishop to Knight and so on...)I am glad to see
there are people who have taken the time and the effort to do research as
to where the game of chess has its origins. It is now commonly believed
that not chines chess, but chaturanga is the oldest known form of chess.
Its an Indian game. I will compare it with chinese chess, and hope many
others will share the same passion.

It seems to me that the elephant in xiangqi (on the blackside) is
most likely and almost certainly an import from india since china
has no elephants. the character used on the black side is that of 
elephant which would be quite strange if it originated in china. so
certainly that perticular character and that piece must have come after
contact with india. 

The cannon piece almost certainly originated in china, since
china invented gun powder quite early on.

Also the different symbols on each side almost hint that it might be 
different army game once, with different powers on the sides, though
there might have been a more prosaic reason, that all the pieces have
different symbols between the sides since the original pieces were carved
and the only way to tell the sides were the characters. (red and black
came later)

And finally, since it is the elephant (xiang) that gives name to the 
whole game, that is if translated directly word for word xiangqi would
be elephant boardgame (qi having being derived from weiqi) and that 
elephants only known in china after contact with india, it is very likely
that modern xiangqi derives from indian source.

Good try but not informative enough.
A person that know NUTS about chinese
won't know what you are implying.

Horse/ Knight in chinese is 'ma' NOT 'mao'.

Cheers!

Good sites about XiangQi in English are hard to find.  Here's a collection
of essential web-sites and programs for XiangQi.

------------------
RULES/INTRODUCTION

http://www.chessvariants.com/xiangqi.html 
Overall summary

http://www.chessvariants.com/chinfaq.html 
rec.games.chinese-chess FAQ

http://www.crockford.com/chess/xiangqi.html 
Introduction for chess players

http://www.ishipress.com/cc-rules.htm 
Sam Sloan's introduction

http://www.yutopian.com/go/ccLes/ccLes.html 
Yutopian's introduction

http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/afi/ch_index.htm 
Chinese & Korean chess

http://www.chesshub.com/cchess/tutorial/ 
Chesshub.com tutorial

http://www.chesshub.com/cchess/rules/ 
Chesshub.com Asian rules

http://www.acs.sch.edu.sg/acs_indep/eca/clubs/chinese_chess/guide.html 
Playing Guide

ftp://weber.ucsd.edu/pub/dmckiern/XiangQi.pdf 
Essentials of Chinese & Korean Chess

http://www.yutopian.com/chinesechess/chrules.pdf 
Basics of Chinese Chess

http://www.cchess.com/rules/rules.htm 
Chinese Chess Net

http://home1.gte.net/res1bup4/chess_intro.htm
Introduction by Peter Donnelly

---------------------
TUTORIAL AND STRATEGY

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/xianglearn.html 
MSO World - 6 pages

http://library.thinkquest.org/12255/universal.htm 
with Java - highly recommended!

http://www.geocities.com/yccheok/tutorial/menu.html 
with Java - online only

--------------------
SOFTWARE COLLECTIONS

http://www.nchess.com/

http://www.geocities.com/yccheok/software.html

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/software/software.htm

PLAYING SOFTWARE

http://www.zillionsofgames.com/games/chinesechess-fd.html 
http://www.zillionsofgames.com/games/chinesechesswesternstyle.html
Zillions of Games

http://www.geocities.com/xqlearner/ 
http://xqlearner.ibid.com.cn (mirror site)
Chinese Chess Learner 
Shareware playing/database - value: excellent

http://www.nchess.com/cccmain.htm 
Coffee Chinese Chess Ver 0.4 java applet 
simple - value: good)

http://www.cc-xiexie.com
http://www.geocities.com/yccheok/software/xiexie.zip 
XieXie 
Strong playing program - value: excellent

http://www.geocities.com/yccheok/software/miloches.zip 
Milo's Chinese Chess 
2D and 3D - value: good

http://cosoft.org.cn/project/showfiles.php?group_id=100 
Mantis Chess Ver. 1.04 
Tiny GNU program - value: average

------------------------
EDITOR/DATABASE SOFTWARE

http://tysung.hypermart.net/cchview/m1.htm 
CChView Ver 3.5.0 
Get disk 1 from xiangqi.rm-f.net/disk1.zip - value: good

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/software/cchview/help/main.htm
CChView 4.3.5 - value: excellent

http://www.nchess.com/xb.html 
XB Database Browser ver 1.1
Browsing only - value: good

http://www.nchess.com/eon.htm 
Endgame database viewer Of xiaNqi 
For evaluating end-games - value: average

http://www.nchess.com/ccwsetup.zip 
Chinese Chess World Ver 0.1
Trainer program with computer play - value: average

-----
GAMES

http://www.nchess.com/download.html 
Masters games

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/index.html 
Xiangqi Master Database - huge collection

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/software/cchview/help/main.htm
Xiangqi Master Database - for CChView 4.3.5

http://xiangqi.rm-f.net/index.html 
Xiangqi Opening Studies

--------------------------------		
SERVERS REQUIRING GENERIC CLIENT (ICCS = Internet Chinese Chess Servers)

http://xiangqi.com/ 
World Xiangqi League - site being revised

telnet chess.homeylife.net 5555 (active!)
Note: register by logging on with your chosen user handle, 
and when logged on type: 'register youremailaddress'

-------------------
GENERIC ICCS client 

http://icompile.hypermart.net/xiangqi/ccctwin.htm 
CCCT Ver. 1.85 for ICCS - recommended! 

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cave/7230/coolclient01.zip 
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cave/7230/coolclient02.zip 
Cool Client Ver 1.1 for ICCS disk 1 & 2

---------------------------------
SERVERS REQUIRING SPECIFIC CLIENT

http://www.chesssky.net/eindex.htm 
Movesky XiangQi
http://www.chesssky.net/edownload.htm 
MoveSky XiangQi client
Note: www.movesky.net is their old URL

http://www.cchess.com/english-index.html 
CChess.com Chinese Chess Net
http://www.cchess.com/download/englishdownload.html 
CChess.com client Ver. 4.5.8
Note: some parts of inteface are in Chinese, seems deserted

------------		
JAVA SERVERS

http://www.clubxiangqi.com/ 
Club XiangQi - most active/recommended

http://www.chesshub.com 
Chess Hub - active - apparently $12 a year

http://library.thinkquest.org/12255/universal.htm 
seems deserted?

---------------------
PLAY BY EMAIL SERVERS

http://www.itsyourturn.com 
slow play over several days

http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/
Play By Email Server

-----------------------------------------
JAVA APPLETS FOR PLAYING AGAINST COMPUTER

http://24.101.164.160/xq/computer/computer.htm 
Xiangqi Database

http://private.addcom.de/dxb/ 
European Xiangqi Federation

http://www.nchess.com/cccmain.htm 
Coffee Chinese Chess

-------------------
LINKS AND RESOURCES

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dmckiern/xiang_qi.htm

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/index.html (Xiangqi Database - Peter Sung)

http://www.geocities.com/yccheok/index.html

http://www.nchess.com

http://www.yutopian.com/chinesechess/

-------------------
XIANGQI FEDERATIONS

http://wxf.hypermart.net/eg/index.html 
World XiangQi Federation

http://private.addcom.de/dxb/ 
European XiangQi Federation

http://www.asianxiangqi.org/ 
Asian XiangQi Federation

http://tysung.cjb.net/xq/club/txa/txa.htm 
Toronto XiangQi Federation

-----------
DISCUSSIONS

rec.games.chinese-chess 
newsgroup

http://www.nchess.com/forum
Computer XiangQi Forum

http://private.addcom.de/dxb/dxbforum.html 
European XiangQi forum

http://24.102.146.141/xq/mlist.htm 
mailing list from WXF - World Xiangqi Federation - seems inactive

-----------------
ARTICLES AND NEWS

http://www.chez.com/cazaux/champions-xiangqi.htm 
Xiangqi Champions

http://www.chesshub.com/faq/cchess/?L=players 
World's best players

http://private.addcom.de/dxb/dxbhof.html 
Europe's best players

http://www.chesshub.com/faq/cchess/?L=complex 
Space/State in Chess vs Chinese Chess

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/xiang_lu_world.html 
World Champ vs World game 1

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/2xiang_lu_world.html 
World Champ vs World game 2

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/3Lu_world.html 
World Champ vs World game 3

http://www.yutopian.com/chinesechess/history.html 
history of XiangQi

http://www.asianxiangqi.org/English/10axmit/EngAlbum1.htm 
Photographs

http://www.sport.gov.mo/2001/en/xiangqi/index.phtml 
2001 World XiangQi Championships

http://www.cchess.com/others/others.html 
Chinese Chess and Culture

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