Notes from my terminal

The Secret Inside the Orange and the Elephant Game

"There was once an orange field in which an enormous orange was grown. When the orange was peeled, it was found that inside two old men were sitting facing each other, playing chess".

Chinese legend, from the book of Chinese chess game collections, "The Secret Inside the Orange" by Jinzhen Zhu, published in 1632

Like almost 100 million other players world-wide (most of them in Asian countries like China, Vietnam and Singapore), I enjoy playing the world's most popular board game, Xiang Qi or Chinese chess. Xiang Qi is similar to the variant of chess played in Western countries nowadays, but features some pieces and rules that make it quicker, more aggressive and (at least in my eyes) more fun to play. Literally translated, Xiang Qi means "Elephant game", which is a reference to one of the pieces, the elephant, a piece similar to the bishop in international chess. Known as co tuong in Vietnam and (with slightly different rules) jang gi in Korea, it sports a unique piece called the cannon (pao) that has to jump over other pieces in order to capture and fewer pawns than in Arabic-Persian-Western chess, thus making the playing experience less like untangleing a traffic jam in mid-game.

You can read about the rules of Xiang Qi in Wikipedia or at Hans Bodlaender's wonderful site on chess variants. Once you are ready to try out your Xiang Qi skills, you can play it in your browser at itsyourturn.com or with a Java applet at ClubXiangQi where you'll find some strong (mostly Vietnamese or Vietnamese-American) opponents for a battle of wits. Another valueable resource is the Xiangqi Database.