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You discribe the stuff very good.
Yes, I was speaking of the dabbaba(h). As for whether Chinese Chess ever had a leaper, I doubt anyone knows. Murray quotes a later Chinese work on chess, I suspect from the Ming dynasty, remarking on how little they knew of how chess was played in the Tang and Sung periods, except that it was obviously different.
John Ayer's 'orthogonal leapers' are presumably the piece now called a Dabbaba as that was the extra piece in Shatranj Kamil, to 'complete' a family with the diagonal Elephant and oblique Knight. However the Elephant and Knight of present-day Xiang Qi are steppers - they need to pass through a square adjacent to both start and destination. Would the Dabbaba of the intermediate game have been a stepper rather than a leaper? is ther any evidence of Xiang Qi ever having leaping pieces?
How to Download the game Xiangqi
I have a conjecture about the origin of Chinese Chess. It is known that there was an earlier version, played on a board ten squares by ten, uncheckered; Murray reproduces a reconstructed arrangement by Karl Himly, with the 'king' and 'queen' arranged fore-and-aft in the nine-castle. This is a crucial (in many ways!) error. The current Chinese Chess board, eight squares by nine with a nine-castle at each end and a river across the middle, is known to be older than Chinese Chess, and to have been used for two previous games. There is therefore no basis for drawing the nine-castle on the ten-by-ten-square board for the earlier version. There is also no basis for believing that the earlier board contained a central river. Take them away, and we have the plain ten-by-ten-square board of so many variants, including Shatranj al-Kamil I. It also has the same pieces as Shatranj al-Kamil I: A king, his attendant minister, two elephants moving as alfils, two knights or horses, two rooks, and two orthogonal leapers, with a front rank of pawns. I think therefore that when Chaturanga was introduced into China in the time of the Wei-ti Emperor, and he had the two players beheaded and forbade the use of any game with a piece representing an emperor or called such, Chaturanga was indeed driven out of China. A couple of centuries later Shatranj al-Kamil Type One was introduced along another trade route from Persia. Perhaps the players were informed of the previous edict, or perhaps it was just their native prudence that persuaded them to demote one king to governor and the other to general, each with his appropriate officer. They then moved the game to a native board, abandoning the race game for which that board must have been quite inconvenient. Since the commander-in-chief and his adjutant were now inside a fortress, they were forced to stay within its walls. The elephant, huge, heavy, and one imagines heavily laden, was ruled unable to cross the river. The orthogonal leaper was changed from a camel to a catapult, or cannon, capable of destroying its victim even past a screen, but moving along the ground. The rook, or chariot, was left unchanged, and the pawn and horse were slightly modified for reasons that I don't see.
<p>The odd thing is that Murray almost worked this out himself; he remarked on the great similarity between the earlier Chinese game of chess and the Persian variants. I think it was only the spurious nine-castle on Himly's diagram that prevented him from seeing the obvious.
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
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!
It's pretty good. Do you have the rules of Chinese Chess that Korean people play with? If you do, that'll be great!
Very interesting comments. I have to admit that I have not easily adapted to cannons, but your observations will make me take a fresh look at them. Thanks, Chen.
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.
I do not play for a very long time. That is why I rated myself poor.
Hue liako gojuik ask mail [email protected] . Kopta liu ertunduji eh djd Zdeno. Chess ji playing long time. [email protected]
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?
Good question. Certainly the modern sets that I own only distinguish between the Kings, Elephants, and Pawns. However, book illustrations vary. Most only show the diffences noted, but some also differentiate the Cannons and Advisors. 'The Chess of China', Dennis A. Leventhal, 1978, shows all the pieces with differences between the sides. This book was published in China, and reprinted in Taiwan. What the actual historical usage is, I do not know. I also referred to 'Schachspiele in Ostasien', Peter Banaschak, 2001. I found no reference to it, but my German is weak, and I could well have missed it.
An anonymous contributor makes some implausible claims about the symbols in Xiang Qi in the 'Which came first' debate on the comments on the Chaturanga page (and I see a similar debate is going on here). He describes more pieces as having different symbols on each side than are so shown on this page. Is there any historic truth to what he says about the symbols?
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.
Can you prove that Chanturanga is the oldest form of chess. What sources can prove that it is the oldest form
Actually, Chanturanga is the oldest form of chess.
I believe sombody has to know the point values, because Chinese Chess is the oldest form of chess.
Travis: what happens if no one knows them? anyway, Xiangqi is a pretty nice classic game.
Could you please tell the point value of each piece. Such as in Western Chess were the queen is worth 9 points and so on.
This is an interesting variant, but it is weakened by the fact that similar pieces on a side start on similar 'colours'. A way of solving this while keeping close to the original would be to increase to ten files to match the ranks, with 4-file-wide palaces. The general could replaced by a standard King and a capturable Wazir, both still confined to the fortress. Both middle files would have Chinese pawns. A further improvement would be allowing the elephants to capture en route.
exactly what i needed!!! i'm in china at the moment and i want to start to play chinese chess, this is the first step, i hope its easier than learning the language!!
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
Play xiangqi at <a href=http://www.clubxiangqi.com/>http://www.clubxiangqi.com/</a><br>Free and easy to use. Click Register on the website.
a good place to play xiangqi by email is on richard's play-by-email server, all you need is an email account and it's free, and you should always be able to find opponents. <P>
http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/
be back next week.
i wanna play xiangqi online wif other pple. but seems like it is hard to find. wat 2 do??? sien ah... so can u all pls tell mi where can i play. thanx.
How to play Chinese chess
My full name is Sam Zimmermann. Now can you please add it to your list. Thank you very much.
Sam, it's hard to recognize someone who won't even reveal his or her complete name.
<p>A list of recognized contributors to the Chess Variants Pages can be found at http://www.chessvariants.com/index/personq.php
I helped to make this page better but my name has not gone down on a thank you list. For example I pointed out that the elephant could only hit 7 spaces on the board. Your site said 8. You did change it and I did get a thank you but my name is no where on the page. If no body was thanked and recongazed then there would be no point to point out the mistakes on your page. I just want to give an idea.
Holy nitpick, Batman!
Notice you say the word points to describe where you put the pieces to play. Under Geometry A line has an infity number of points. Maybe you should use the word intersections to make it much easyer to understand where you place the pieces.
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!
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.
I think Dan has made a good point and that this site should be changed to tell the right information. After all it makes sense.
Ijust got a chinese chess set from my sister so I tried how to figure out how to play but this website didn't explain to me well enough so I could actually play.
Highly informative and with good links to further information on both xiangchi and janggi. Thank you for your time and effort.
I found a mistake on your page. The elephant can only reach 7 spaces on the board. Your site saids 8. Just trying to help you out.
<p><i>Fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error. --Ed.</i>
I can prove that chess originated in china. First China is a nation that likes to be isolated. Also Indian scolarers have said that the first sign of chess was around the six century A.D. Chinese soclarers have had it in the record book that the first game of chess was invented in the second century B.C. Indian soclarers have said that chinese chess isn't chess because it is played on the points and it has a river, so it isn't chess. I say if you eat a choclate cake and you eat a banna cake, they are both cakes even though they taste different. Make it clear, India did not invent chess first, china did. Also then how come, chess reached Japan if the Indian's and Europeans didn't discover it so soon? China is right next to Korea and Japan. I rest my case.
Sam, please provide references when you make a claim that our information is incorrect. I will be deleting comments which are offhand, unsupported statements of disagreement. Thanks!
sam from 2002/06/27. If you aint happy with this site dont winge about it.
constructive critisicm is good. If you can do better go ahead.
<p>I personally believe this site is superb. Great work to all the people
who
put it together.
You give a very little to zero amount of history about this game. You could tell where the chinese came up with the idea of a cannon.
I am a big Chinese chess fan. I think it is great that you so have so many different chess boards at this site. This board looks very rare in America. Sometime I would to play Chinese chess. It looks complicated but easy at the same time.
This was a superb site! I unfourtunatley can not give you an Excellent on it because well, I am doing a Chinese Report on Chinese Chess and it has to be 3 pages long. It can be doubled spaced though so I do not think you give enough info because I only got 2 pages! Can you please put more info on it though? Well I will come and check next week.
Thanks Thanx
This page is better than excellent! It is so specific and even has the traditional characters in chinese. I would have enjoyed it more if there were pronunciations to them but this is good enough. I never knew there was a modernized version of it and it surprised me to know that not only english-speaking people are interested in learning the chinese chess. Now I know that everyone can learn how to play it, even people who speak an entirely different language from english or chinese.
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 took me at least 15 mininutes to complete download of this website. So far, not finish yet. Thanks
very good
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
Make sure you add something about who made/created it and what year it was created.
Informative overview for the newcomer to Xiangqi, however, the descriptions assume the reader is already familiar with regular chess. Kim, Cape Town, South Africa
Thanks for the initial overview of this unknown game. I hadn't heard of Chinese Chess until tonight and simple curiousity sent me to your website. Now...I just want to play! With appreciation, tt
Very useful and informative. Thanks for your effort.
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