How To Play Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) For Beginners

Explore the Zhang Jie board where pieces sit on intersections, with a central river, a palace. Crosses mark starting positions for soldiers and cannons.

Master the core Xiangqi mechanics: moving, capturing, and turn-taking from the starting red and black setup. Learn capture rules and use a cheat sheet to recall piece moves.

The general, Xiangqi's key piece, moves one square up, down, left, or right, stays in the palace, cannot face each other, and trapping the opponent's general wins.

The advisors move one square diagonally and cannot leave the palace. They are defensive pieces that mutually support the generals, forming a common defensive formation.

Elephants move two squares diagonally and stay on their side of the river to defend, often supporting each other; blocking their path stops movement and can break their defense.

learn how the Xiangqi horse moves in an L-shape, can cross the river, and can be blocked by intervening pieces, unlike the knight in regular chess.

Explore Xiangqi chariots, which move and capture like rooks—any number of unblocked squares horizontally or vertically. Learn why these pieces are among the most powerful after the general.

Master the cannon's unique Xiangqi movement: it slides like a chariot across the board, can cross the river, and captures by jumping over exactly one piece to strike an enemy.

Learn how soldiers move in Xiangqi: five soldiers per side, their forward moves and captures, how crossing the river grants sideways moves, and that they do not promote.

Set up the Xiangqi board symmetrically and learn the relative value of pieces from soldiers to chariots, cannons, and generals, with practical trading guidelines.

Learn to identify check, avoid stalemate, and prevent perpetual moves in Xiangqi, with red and black generals, cannons, and chariots, plus blocking or capturing to escape check.

Learn the remaining Xiangqi rules, including check, draw conditions, and touch-move etiquette. Prepare for your first game by understanding development and common beginner mistakes.

Learn Xiangqi openings, from advancing central soldiers to the central cannon and central elephant, and how to mirror moves, develop the horse early, and balance aggressive versus defensive play.

Activate your pieces, avoid memorized openings, control the center, open lines for chariots and cannons, and keep the general safe with advisers and elephants.

Learn key tactical ideas in Xiangqi, including forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks with cannons, diverting the guard, blocking the horse, and defusing the cannon to outplay opponents.

Understand how cannons move: they slide horizontally or vertically and capture by jumping over one piece, friendly or enemy, and beware early threats to horses and leaving them undefended.

Discover how Xiangqi horses can be blocked, unlike western chess knights; avoid the common mistake of assuming horses jump and learn to block to stop a check.

Demonstrate why the general and two advisers must stay inside the palace in Xiangqi, and show how leaving the palace can cost you a quick capture and defeat.

Discover the opposing generals rule, where the two generals may not have a direct line of sight, even if a threatening chariot move seems to win.

Treat the river as not a barrier, using imagined vertical lines to guide horse moves and captures. Remove confusion for beginners during opening moves.

In Xiangqi, soldiers can only move forward until they cross the river, then they may also move sideways; they capture the same way they move.

Observe how two cannons lined up against the general create an early checkmate in Xiangqi. Learn how to recognize and prevent this deadly setup.

Watch out for the back-rank checkmate in Xiangqi, where red can win despite a massive material deficit, as the red cannon traps the general behind advisers.

Continue your Xiangqi education with in-person and online practice, aided by a printable cheat sheet of piece moves. Build skills through opening theory, traps, tactics, and endgame puzzles.

Access a free printable one-page cheat sheet detailing piece look, moves, and relative values, then pick a portable, legible physical board and play online at the recommended site.