Your move
Your move
Chinese chess, played by more people than any board game except chess itself. Pieces sit on the intersections, a river splits the board, and the two generals are locked inside their palaces — and must never end up staring at each other down an open file. Cannons are the strange ones: they slide like chariots but can only capture by leaping over exactly one piece.
You play red at the bottom and move first. Tap one of your pieces and every square it can legally reach is marked with a dot; tap a dot to move there, or tap elsewhere to change your mind.
The chariot slides any distance in a straight line. The horse steps one square straight then one diagonally, and is blocked if the square it steps through is occupied. The elephant jumps two diagonally, is blocked at the midpoint, and can never cross the river. Advisors and the general stay inside the three-by-three palace, the advisors on the diagonals and the general on the lines. Soldiers move one step forward, and may also step sideways once they have crossed the river, but never backwards.
The cannon moves like a chariot when it is not capturing, but to take a piece it must jump over exactly one piece of either colour. Win by leaving the enemy general with no legal move — and remember that a player who cannot move at all loses, so being stalemated is a defeat, not a draw.
The two cannons are worth more at the start than at the end, and that shapes the whole opening. A cannon needs a screen to capture, so an emptying board slowly disarms it while chariots only get stronger. Trade cannons for chariots when you can, and be wary of grabbing a pawn with a cannon if it leaves the cannon deep in enemy territory with nothing to jump over.
The rule that generals may not face each other is a weapon, not just a restriction. A general pinned on an open file cannot legally be exposed, which means any of your pieces standing between them is untouchable in that direction, and moving an enemy piece off the file can be illegal for your opponent. Endgames are often won by clearing a file and forcing the enemy general to shuffle.
Do not open the palace unnecessarily. Advisors and elephants never cross the river and exist purely to defend, so a general stripped of both is usually lost to a single chariot even with material otherwise level. When you attack, aim at removing the advisors first; when you defend, keep them home rather than using them to chase pawns.
Soldiers become genuinely dangerous after the river because they gain sideways movement, and three of them near the palace can beat a chariot. Push the soldiers on the files where your chariot already works, so that a defender who blocks one is exposed to the other.