Banqi

How Banqi is played

Banqi is played with a xiangqi set on half its board. All thirty-two pieces start face down at random; each turn you turn one up or move one of yours, and pieces take by rank. You win when the opponent has no piece left or no move.

The board

Four by eight squares, the pieces inside them. At the start every piece of both sides lies face down, shuffled, one on every square.

A turn

Turn up any face-down piece, of either colour, or move one of your face-up pieces one square forward, back or sideways, onto an empty square or onto an enemy piece it may take. You must do one or the other.

Who plays which colour

Nobody has a colour at first. The first player’s first piece turned up decides: its colour is theirs, the other is the second player’s.

Ranks

From the strongest: general, advisor, elephant, chariot, horse, cannon, soldier. A piece takes an enemy of equal or lower rank, with one exception: the soldier takes the general, and the general cannot take a soldier. Face-down pieces cannot be taken.

The cannon

The cannon steps one square onto an empty one, but it never takes by a step. It takes by jumping over exactly one piece, face up or down, of either colour, any distance along a line, onto any face-up enemy piece, whatever its rank.

Winning and draws

You win when the opponent has lost every piece or has no legal move. A position that occurs for the third time is a draw, and so are sixty turns in a row without a capture or a piece turned up.

Other readings

These are the Taiwanese rules as Taiwan’s computer-games association writes them. In Hong Kong the ranks run general, chariot, horse, cannon, advisor, elephant, soldier, and the cannon takes by rank like the rest. Many play with chain captures, or let pieces take face-down ones. The quiet count differs: fifty moves, or 180 plies at the Computer Olympiad.

The story

China · popular in China after 1949, in Hong Kong and Taiwan; Taiwan’s rules for computer games since 2007

When and where

Banqi, “half chess”, is a folk game played with a xiangqi set on half its board. It became popular in the People’s Republic of China after 1949 (a Shanghai games book of 1957 has it) and is a common pastime in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

How it changed

It keeps xiangqi’s pieces but not its game: all thirty-two start face down on the squares of a 4 × 8 board, a turn turns one up or moves a piece one square, and pieces take by rank, from the general down to the soldier, which alone may take the general. Hong Kong ranks the pieces differently, and many families play with chain captures; the Taiwanese rules are the ones most played today.

Today

Since 2007 Taiwan’s computer-games association has used it in courses and contests, and the Computer Olympiad has held a Chinese dark chess event since 2010; in 2024 six programs took part, and the winner learned the game in the way of AlphaZero.

Did you know?

Its names tell its two sides: 半棋, “half chess”, for the half board, and 暗棋 or 翻翻棋, “dark chess” and “flip-flip chess”, for the pieces face down.

Original piece names

the pieces of xiangqi, each side’s sixteen face down, ranked general, advisor, elephant, chariot, horse, cannon, soldier

Sources: Wikipedia (中文), 暗棋 · Wikipedia · T.-S. Hsu, Rules for Chinese Dark Chess (TCGA, 2019) · The Chess Variant Pages, after Xiangqi Review

More games

Chess and variants

• Chess · Classic chess, or Chess960 with a shuffled back rank.
• Chess960 · Fischer random chess: the back rank starts in one of 960 setups.
• Antichess · Losing chess: give away all your pieces, captures are compulsory.
• Atomic chess · Every capture is an explosion that clears the pieces around it.
• Crazyhouse · Captured pieces change sides and can be dropped back onto the board.
• Hostage chess · Captured men become hostages and come back by exchange or from the airfield.
• Three-check · Chess where the third check wins, so every check counts.
• King of the Hill · Chess where a king that reaches the centre wins at once.
• Jeson Mor · Mongolia’s nine horses: take the centre and hold it for a move.
• Racing Kings · No pawns, no checks: the first king on the far rank wins.
• Horde · 36 white pawns storm a full black army.
• Dunsany’s chess · Lord Dunsany’s game of 1942: 32 pawns against a full army.
• Los Alamos chess · Chess on 6 × 6 without bishops, the first game a computer played (1956).
• Duck chess · After every move you move the duck, which blocks everyone. No check.
• Marseillais chess · Two moves a turn, with one piece or two; White starts with one.
• Progressive chess · One move, then two, then three: each turn is one move longer.
• Fog of War · You only see where your pieces can move. Capture the king to win.
• Kriegspiel · Only your own pieces in sight; an umpire judges every move.
• Alice chess · Two boards: every piece that moves passes through to the other one.
• Raumschach 3D · Chess in a 5 × 5 × 5 cube: five boards stacked, and the unicorn.
• Old Raumschach · Maack’s cube as played before 1919: five pawns above the pieces.
• Friendly Chess · Nothing is captured: pieces unite and set off chain reactions.
• Ultima · Every piece captures its own way, and the immobilizer freezes.
• Gliński’s hexagonal chess · Chess on 91 hexagons: three bishops, rooks in six directions.
• McCooey’s hexagonal chess · Hexagonal chess closer to chess: seven pawns that take diagonally.
• Shafran’s hexagonal chess · Hexagonal chess on 70 cells, with castling and pawns that step three.
• Spartan chess · Persians against Spartans: chess’ army against two kings and new pieces.
• Legan chess · The armies in opposite corners; pawns step diagonally towards the far one.

Big chess

• Complete chess · The Arabic chess of the 9th century on 10 × 10, with two dabbābas a side.
• Courier chess · Medieval Germany’s chess on a 12 × 8 board, with the courier, the man and the schleich.
• Grande Acedrex · Alfonso X’s great chess on a 12 × 12 board, with lions, giraffes and a roc.
• Tamerlane chess · Timur’s great chess on an 11 × 10 board, with giraffes, camels and citadels.
• Carrera’s chess · The first chess on ten files, from a Sicilian priest’s book of 1617.
• Duke of Rutland’s chess · Fourteen files, with the concubine and two crowned rooks a side.
• Bird’s chess · Henry Bird’s ten-file chess of 1874, with the guard and the equerry.
• Capablanca chess · Ten files and two new pieces: the archbishop and the chancellor.
• Gothic chess · Ed Trice’s setup of 2000, today called Trice’s Chess.
• Capablanca Random · Capablanca chess from one of 12,118 shuffled starts.
• Embassy chess · Grand chess’ row of pieces on a 10 × 8 board.
• Janus chess · Two januses a side, each moving as a bishop or a knight.
• Grand chess · Christian Freeling’s 10 × 10 game: pawns promote only to lost pieces.
• S-chess · Chess with a hawk and an elephant in hand, placed as the back rank leaves.

The chess family

• Chaturanga · India’s ancient chess, the root of the family: take the king to win.
• Shatranj · The medieval ancestor of chess, with a weak ferz and a jumping alfil.
• Byzantine chess · Shatranj on a round board: the rook circles, pawns never promote.
• Medieval chess · Europe’s chess before 1475: the ferz and the king may leap on their first move.
• Senterej · Ethiopian chess: no turns until the first capture, then Shatranj.
• Shatar · Mongolian chess: the bers, the camel, and a mate that needs a shak.
• Makruk · Thai chess: a slow, strategic game with a counting rule.
• Ouk Chatrang · Cambodian chess: Makruk with a leap for the king and the met.
• Sittuyin · Burmese chess: set up your pieces, then promote on the diagonals.
• Kar Ouk · Ouk Chatrang where the first check wins: guard your king.
• Malay chess · Chess of the Malay world: the king leaps, a crowned pawn walks back.
• Xiangqi · Chinese chess: a river, palaces and a cannon that jumps to capture.
• Minixiangqi · Xiangqi on 7 × 7 points: no river, no advisors, no elephants.
• Manchu chess · Red’s lone chariot moves as horse and cannon too, against a full army.
• Jieqi · Xiangqi with the pieces face down: each is revealed by its first move.
• Janggi · Korean chess: no river, palace diagonals and a cannon that always jumps.
• Shogi · Japanese chess: captured pieces return to the board on your side.
• Minishogi · Shogi on a 5 × 5 board: six pieces a side, short and sharp games.
• Chu shogi · Japan’s great shogi on 12 × 12: no drops, and a lion that moves twice.
• Tori shogi · Bird shogi on 7 × 7: a phoenix, quails and swallows, with drops.

More players

• Chaturaji · India’s four-handed chess: kings can be captured, captures score.
• Four Seasons Chess · Alfonso X’s chess for four from 1283: four seasons, the last king wins.
• Three-player chess · Three armies on a hexagonal board: you against two bots.
• Four-player chess · Four armies on a cross-shaped board: in teams or all against all.
• Bughouse · Two boards, two teams: what you capture goes to your partner's hand.
• Eight-player chess · Eight armies on a board of 516 squares: all against all, in pairs or four against four.
• Verney’s four-handed chess · Verney’s game of 1881: two against two, mate both enemy kings.
• Verney’s eight-handed chess · Verney’s game for eight of 1884: four against four on 448 squares.