Chinese chess questions, answered

Xiangqi (象棋) is Chinese Chess, a two-player strategy game that's been played for well over a thousand years and remains one of the most popular board games on earth. You play across a 9×10 grid split by a river, each side commanding a General, Advisors, Elephants, Horses, Chariots, Cannons and Soldiers, and you win by trapping the enemy General with no way out. If you already know Western chess you'll pick it up quickly, but the cannon, the river and the palace give it a rhythm all its own.

Yes. Every game of Chinese chess on XiangqiPlay is free. Play online against real opponents matched to your rating, open a private two-player table and send a friend the link, or play Xiangqi against the computer. It runs in the browser with nothing to download and no plugin, so you can start a game in a few seconds.

Xiangqi and Western chess share an ancestor and the same goal, trapping the enemy king, but almost everything between differs. Chinese chess is played on the intersections of a 9×10 board rather than inside squares, a river splits the two sides, the General and Advisors never leave a 3×3 palace, the Horse can be blocked, and the Cannon has to jump over exactly one piece to capture. Chess players usually learn the rules within an hour and then spend a happy month getting ambushed by the Cannon.

Neither is objectively harder; they're hard in different ways. The open Xiangqi board and the jumping Cannon make tactics sharper and games shorter, so a single loose file can end you by move fifteen. Western chess rewards long positional squeezes and has far more published opening theory. Most players who try both find Xiangqi quicker to learn and just as deep to master.

Yes, genuinely free. Play as many online games as you like, do the daily puzzle, and follow the beginner lessons without paying a cent. If you want to go deeper, Premium adds unlimited engine analysis, the full lesson library and detailed stats, but you never need it to enjoy the game.

Not a word. You can switch the pieces to Western symbols if the characters feel unfamiliar, the whole interface is in English, and the lessons walk you through every rule from your very first move. Plenty of our players started out knowing nothing about the game, or the language.

Of course. There's a built-in engine with easy, medium and hard levels, so you can practise an opening, test an idea, or just learn at your own pace before you take on real people. It's the friendliest way to get your first few games under your belt.

XiangqiPlay already runs beautifully on your phone: it's an installable web app, so you can add it to your home screen and play like a native app today. Dedicated iOS and Android apps are on the way.

Every rated game updates your Elo, and we match you with opponents around your own strength so games stay close and competitive. Win and your rating climbs; the leaderboard only counts real, finished games, so wherever you land, you earned it.

Xiangqi is played on a 9×10 grid, with pieces on the intersections. Each side has a General, two Advisors, two Elephants, two Horses, two Chariots, two Cannons and five Soldiers. Learn how each piece moves, keep your General safe inside the palace, develop your Chariots and Cannons onto open files, and aim to checkmate the opposing General. Red always moves first.

The goal is to checkmate the opposing General — to attack it so that it cannot escape, block the attack, or capture the attacker. Unlike Western chess, having no legal move (stalemate) is also a loss in Xiangqi, not a draw.

Xiangqi is played on the intersections of a 9×10 grid rather than on squares, and features a river across the middle and a 3×3 palace for each General. It has unique pieces such as the Cannon (which must jump over exactly one piece to capture) and the Elephant (which cannot cross the river). The two Generals also may never face each other on an open file — the flying-general rule.

The Cannon moves any distance in a straight line like a Chariot when not capturing. To capture, it must leap over exactly one other piece — friendly or enemy — which acts as a screen, and land on the enemy piece beyond it.

Each side has seven types of piece: the General (King), Advisors (Guards), Elephants (Bishops), Horses (Knights), Chariots (Rooks), Cannons, and Soldiers (Pawns). XiangqiPlay can show them as traditional Chinese characters or Western-style symbols.

Pieces sit on the intersections, not inside the squares. On your back rank, from left to right: Chariot, Horse, Elephant, Advisor, General, Advisor, Elephant, Horse, Chariot. The two Cannons go on the third rank, in front of and one point inside each Horse. The five Soldiers sit on the fourth rank on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th files. Red always moves first.

Both descend from the same Indian ancestor, but they pull in opposite directions. Shogi lets you drop captured pieces back onto the board as your own, so material never leaves play and the game grows more complex as it goes. Xiangqi never returns captured pieces, so positions simplify, and its character comes instead from the river, the caged General and the screen-jumping Cannon. Shogi is played on 9×9 squares; Xiangqi on the intersections of a 9×10 grid.

No. XiangqiPlay runs entirely in the browser — no download, no installer, no Flash or Java plugin — so it works on school and office networks where desktop clients don't. You can also add it to your phone's home screen as an app if you'd rather it opened like one.

Usually — but not always. If no human is available when you look for a game, we may pair you with one of our AI opponents so you never have to sit and wait. They play at a range of strengths, take realistic time over their moves, and your rating still counts. AI opponents earn no rating of their own and never appear on the leaderboard, so the rankings only ever reflect real players. If you specifically want a human, invite a friend with a private link or join an open game from the lobby.