Talk:Xiangqi/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This page contains old, inactive discussions. For current discussion regarding the Xiangqi article, see Talk:Xiangqi. — Gwalla | Talk 00:04, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

A couple of questions

I have just a couple questions about the rules. The way I learned the game from some Vietnamese friends, elephants were not allowed to cross the river. This made them strictly defensive pieces, like the palace guards. Also, the king was not allowed to move into danger. If nothing separated the two kings, the king whose move it was could "throw his spear" to kill the other king; but it wasn't allowed to actually move into "check" this way or any other way. Other than that the rules above are as I remember them.

Also, I once played with a Korean exchange student in college, and quickly learned that the Koreans have a few subtle but significant differences in how they play. Some of the starting positions of the pieces were different, for instance, and the differences radically changed the strategy.

It might be worth mentioning that the pieces are typically round disks with chinese characters written on them to denote what piece it is; more valuable pieces are on larger disks. In the sets I've seen, the opposing sides were red and green, rather than black and white.

--Wesley

Do you mean that if there are no pieces between the kings the king can move more than one space in a move to take the opposing king? Otherwise how would they get close enough without leaving the palace. --rmhermen

Yes, more or less. A king is not allowed to move into the other king's line of sight, or move a piece out of the way so as to cause the kings to be facing each other with no pieces between them. It's a huge exception to the normal movement rules for the king, and "throwing his spear" is probably as good an analogy to explain it as any. This is also covered at the web site linked to from the article.

--Wesley

The purpose of the "throwing his spear" rule is that it allows a mate in endgames that would otherwise be a draw. For example, Chariot (Rook) and General (King) vs. General would be a draw without the "throwing his spear" rule.

User:209.107.95.230

I tried to leave encyclopaedic voice on the parts I was not sure of. Essentially, the part where I referred to myself as I. I probably just had cruel teachers, because one of the first things they informed me was that there was no such thing as check (you just took the king when you could and won if you did). I still beat em :D. You're right about the elephants not being able to cross the river, I just forgot to mention it. Also, every board I've played on had all peices the same size.--BlackGriffen

Terminology of the pieces

I changed the terminology, making it correspond more closely to the reading of the Chinese characters on the pieces -- rather than using the corresponding terms from international (or Western) chess, such as rook and pawn. --Ed Poor 16:10 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

Moving into check

Conversations from subject page:

(I believe it is more common to play as in western chess; check must be announced, the goal is to checkmate, and therefore no player may cause the kings to face each other directly. The way I heard it is "They will laugh at each other" and presumably lose face, a fate worse than death.) (What I learned is that a player may not move so as to expose his general to the opponent's general, or else the opponent's general will "throw his spear", killing the player's general and winning the game. Same principle: must avoid direct line of sight.)

I'm not sure on this, but the way I learned the game, it was legal to move one's king into danger, and if the opponent saw it, you lost. (No, I believe it is typically played as in western chess. In any event, it is better to do so in any chess-like game, because the game loses interest when you expect to lose at any moment due to a blunder. In fact, some use similar rules for any capture; a player can retract a move if it could lead to an immediate capture of a piece. This will allow beginning players to learn much faster and have more fun.)

Error in picture

There is an error in the picture. The positions of Guards and Ministers are mixed up on the White side. --voidvector

Oops! Thanks for the correction! Fixed. --user:Bcrowell

"Elephant Chess"

What is the source for this being called "Elephant Chess"? I've studied the game quite a bit and have never seen it... --Chuck SMITH

Professor David Tod Roy of Princeton University (I think he has retired) has been using it for decades in his translation of Chinese literature. Googling reveals about 200 websites that use it. --Menchi 21:58 May 9, 2003 (UTC)
well, that's what "xian" means -- "elephant"... --little Alex 04:43, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

-Moved my entry to below, "Question about the terms," regarding the mistaken translation "Elephant Chess" --Fazdeconta 18:29, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The word "xiangqi" is not easily pronounced by Westerners, not to mention those who haven't learned pinyin. So an approximate pronunciation may be useful in this case.

Rendering Xiang's approximate pronunciation in English has several possibilities:

  1. siang -- could be mispronouced as "psy..."
  2. syang -- ditto
  3. seeang -- could be mispronouced as "...æng", where [æ] is as in cat
  4. see-ahng -- could be mispronouced as "see ahng", two distinct syllables
  5. seeahng -- indicates that "see-" and "-ahng" are actually one syllable. But three consecutive vowels may look confusing.

But this is probably not the answer. If we add approximate pronunciations to all pages containing pinyin, that may not appear so pretty to some. Maybe a systematic SAMPA could be an answer. --Menchi 09:22 17 May 2003 (UTC)

I would prefer "syahng", which seems clear to me. But what about the second syllable: we have "tsi" for xiangqi, but "chee" for weiqi - they should be the same, shouldn't they? --Zundark 12:50 17 May 2003 (UTC)
I know there are regional differences in pronunciation of the same pinyin, but I lived in Beijing for 8 months, and there they did not pronounce it "see-ahng tsi", they pronounced it more like "shee-ahng chee". Definitely closer to "sh" than "s", although they hold the tongue a little further forward to make their "x" than we do to make our "sh". Also, yes, the "chee" is the same as in weiqi. Other Chinese may resent Beijing being the standard for everything, but unless we are going to include multiple pronunciations (or none), we probably should default to Beijing pronunciation. --Fritzlein
I summarized the possibilities in a table, where the letters within square bracket, [ ], is SAMPA:
pinyin example option 1 option 2 option 3
x 西 s [s] sh [S] ?
q 七 ts [ts] ch [tS] ?

Most Taiwanese do not resent the Beijingese dialect. We find Beijingers' accent to be very euphonious actually.

Pinyin describes "x" as "about halfway between sh and s." And "q" as "about halfway between ch and c." Where c most likely refers to the German pronunciation, which is "ts."

The pinyin "x" is described linguistically as an alveolo-palatal fricative or palatal fricative, where (alveolo-)palatal is the place of articulation, and fricative is the manner of articulation. Both the English "s" and "sh" are fricatives as well, although they sound differently. The pinyin "q" has the same place of articulation as "x," except that it is an affricate, instead of a fricative. Which means, in this case, that a "t" has been added in front of the sound of "x." --Menchi 08:22 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Korean variation

I believe that I recall that in Korean chess, (1) a stalemate is a draw, and (2) there is no problem with the kings being open to each other down the rank (which really does affect a close end game).

There's an article on Korean_chess which says that the rules are a bit different, but doesn't say what. To what extent do the two Xiangqi/Janggi differ? I'm inclined to turn the stub at Korean chess into a redirect... Kokiri 13:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I did my own research; the two are definitely different, alhough Korean chess (Janggi) is derived from an old version of Xiangqi. Kokiri 13:38, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation

It's my humble observation that this article is lacking a pronunciation for Xiangqi. →Raul654 19:10, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe the pinyin article will help? I reckon something along the lines of she-ang chee.

XQ and Jianggi is NOT the same game and should have separate articles! // Wellparp 10:44, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes. It doesn't make much sense to cover them in the same article, as the differences are too large. There is already a separate article at Korean chess, though it's just a stub. Obviously this needs sorting out, preferably by someone who knows the game fairly well. --Zundark 11:53, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Yes. Kokiri 13:38, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I've sorted out some of the major errors in the Janggi page, and now I'm confident it stands well on its own. And as a Korean who was introduced to Xiangqi about a year ago, I can tell you that Janggi and Xiangqi are completely different games in terms of strategy and so forth, although many Koreans do not know that the Chinese play such a different game. I was surprised as well at the differences when I first saw the board and pieces and learned the rules of Xiangqi. Anyways, I would like to suggest that the constant reference to the different Korean rules be cleaned up in this article. --Iceager 13:27, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the corrections to the Janggi article. I think it is time to cleanse the Xiangqi article of its persistent references to Janggi. It should mention Janggi no more than it mentions shogi or chess. The only reason we listed all the differences was because we didn't have a separate Janggi article at that time, so this one had to do for both. --Fritzlein 20:43, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've done this now. --Zundark 13:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've heard that xiangqi and chess has same Indian origin. Any ideas? --PuzzletChung 10:49, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is the conventional view. Chess is certainly derived from the Indian game of Chaturanga, and it's usually assumed that Xiangqi is also derived from Chaturanga. In any case, there are so many similarities between Chaturanga and Xiangqi that even if Xiangqi isn't derived from Chaturanga itself, it must at least be derived from an ancestor of Chaturanga. --Zundark 13:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Question about the terms

"Xiangqi is native to China and is sometimes inaccurately called Chinese chess or elephant chess."

But why do the article and most of the links use the term Chinese chess? and how is the term inaccurate? Just curious.--Euniana 00:10, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Xiang" in Chinese means "elephant". Thus, a literal translation could be "elephant chess" but not "Chinese chess". I think the original author of the above statement meant to say that the term "Chinese chess" was inaccurate, because it was not a literal translation. I agree that the sentence is confusing, so I have changed it. The reason Chinese chess is used throughout the article is that it is the most common name for the game throughout the English-speaking world. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 04:59, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
To be more accurate, "Xiang" here refers to representation rather than elephant. Mandel 18:36, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Mandel is right. I really think this is a mistake to call it "Elephant Chess." Getting out my big dictionary (現代漢語詞典, The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary) I find that xiàngqí falls under the second entry for xiàng: appearance, shape or image, not elephant. Calling it "Elephant Chess" is the equivalent of translating the English "gay apparel" into Chinese as "homosexual clothing." It's choosing the wrong meaning for the context. What's more, every dictionary I've seen gives the translation as "Chinese Chess," and that's what it means to English-speaking people.

For multi-syllable Chinese words it is not appropriate to translate each individual character into English, lest we end up with abominations such as "air elephant platform" (氣象臺) instead of the proper "meteorological station." I am changing the introduction to reflect this. --Fazdeconta 18:25, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Terminology

It seems that there is some confusion about the terms for that 3x3 square. Although English texts may accept "Palace", the proper term should be "Camp" (as in army camp), or at very the least, "Castle" (as in city castle). Palaces are where Emperors and Kings live, not Generals.

From: LennonOng

The term is 宮 gōng. Palace is one valid translation, and it is also the most common English translation. —Lowellian (talk) 06:15, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

rewording the part with horse please?

"The horse 馬 or 马 (mǎ) is similar to the Knight in Western chess. It is important to distinguish that, the horse moves one point vertically or horizontally and then two points horizontally or vertically respectively, away from its starting position. Thus, the horse cannot jump over certain pieces as the knight in Western chess."


i don't know how to describe it.... but the horse moves one point vertically or horizontally(point A) then one point diagonally forward with respect to the point A(can not land to the point next to the origional point).

players can block the horse by place a piece on point A.

Moved my comment to below "Movement of the Horse." --Fazdeconta 18:50, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Movement of the horse

How is "one space orthagonally, and then one space diagonally away from the starting position" an incorrect description of the movement of the horse? I think you'll find that it results in the exact same possible ending positions as moving two spaces orthogonally and then one space orthogonally at a right angle. It also doesn't require odd explanations like "it can be blocked on the first space of the first part of the move but not the second space". It's also how chessvariants.com describes the move. — Gwalla | Talk 03:47, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Who are you talking to? I agree with you that "one space orthogonally, and then one space diagonally away from the starting position" is a correct description of the horse's move. —Lowellian (talk) 10:36, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I see, you were talking to User:LegolasGreenleaf. Anyway, Gwalla, you're right. —Lowellian (talk) 11:26, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

How about: "The horse moves one space vertically or horizonally in combination with a diagonal move following in the same direction. On a clear board the horse's starting and ending points would be equivalent to the knight's in International Chess. However, the horse may not jump over any other piece during its movement and can be blocked." Maybe a bit more concise, this would make sense to me, what about other readers? --Fazdeconta 18:49, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think that complicates the matter a bit. The "official" way, as Gwalla mentioned, is one space forward (or sideways or backward...) and then a diagonal. I also learned it that way. I think the diagrams give a concise view of a horse's movement. However, I'm open to suggestions- anyone? BTW, thanks for all your help Fazdeconta and Gwalla! Flcelloguy 20:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


I think the comparison with International chess's knight is very clear, and it's safe to assume the reader is familiar with International Chess, but it then becomes especially important to spell out the 'blocked' condition. Is the horse blocked if either path is obstructed or both? Which configurations prevent the International Chess move? Ideally, the rules here should be all that two argumentative lawyers need to play the game. -- Wragge 20:32, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)
Looking at it again, I think the text, combined with the illustrations, makes it clear. Nevermind what I said above. --Fazdeconta 03:09, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Throwing the spear

I have removed the phrase "throwing the spear" from the article for the time being. Gwalla, can you give a reference for the term "throwing the spear"? Certainly, the rule about facing generals is correct, but I have never heard the rule described using this phrase. A Google search for "throwing the spear" in combination with "xiangqi" gives no hits; nor does a Google search for "throwing the spear" in combination w/ "Chinese chess". Alternatively, instead of a citation, can you give the Chinese phrase? Thanks. —Lowellian (talk) 06:23, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

I've seen it referred to as such on chessvariants.com. — Gwalla | Talk 17:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Do you have a link to a page? —Lowellian (talk) 18:18, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. I can't find it now. I must have misremembered, sorry. — Gwalla | Talk 00:23, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)