Jieqi

How Jieqi is played

Jieqi is xiangqi with the pieces face down. Each side’s fifteen pieces other than the general are shuffled and set face down on its start points; a covered piece moves as the piece whose point it stands on, and that move turns it up. The goal is to checkmate the opposing general.

The start

The board is xiangqi’s. Each general stands face up on its point; the other fifteen pieces of each side are shuffled and set face down on that side’s start points: two chariots, two horses, two elephants, two advisors, two cannons and five soldiers, in any order. Red moves first.

Covered pieces

A covered piece moves as the piece of the point it stands on: on a chariot’s point as a chariot, on a horse’s point as a horse, on a soldier’s point one step forward, and so on, capturing the same way. Once it has moved it is turned up, and from then on it is what it really is, wherever it stands.

Revealed pieces

Revealed pieces move as in xiangqi, with one difference: advisors and elephants are no longer held by the palace and the river. An advisor steps one point diagonally anywhere; an elephant goes two points diagonally anywhere, still blocked by a piece on the point between. A soldier steps forward, and sideways too once across the river.

Captured covered pieces

Whoever captures a covered piece sees what it was; its owner never learns. A captured piece that was face up is seen by both.

Winning and draws

Checkmate wins, and a side with no legal move loses. Fifty moves without a capture are a draw; turning up a piece does not restart the count.

Repetition

As in xiangqi: when a position occurs for the third time, the side that checked with every move loses, otherwise the side that kept chasing a piece. A covered piece counts as the piece of its point.

Other readings

Some write that nobody sees a captured covered piece, not even the captor. Tencent’s rules forbid checking or chasing the same piece more than six turns in a row and draw after 40 rounds without a capture; a Vietnamese guide draws on a sixfold repetition. PyChess lets a covered advisor step out of the palace.

The story

Hong Kong · in the parks of Hong Kong and Guangdong from the 1980s; tournaments since 2011

When and where

Jieqi, “reveal chess”, is a folk game of Hong Kong and Guangdong. By the account most sources repeat, Lo Kam-sing and his brother brought the face-down pieces of an army game into xiangqi in the 1980s, and it spread through the parks of both. Around 2001 it grew popular in the coastal cities, under many names and with rules that differed from place to place.

How it changed

The board and the pieces are xiangqi’s, but each side’s pieces except the general start face down and shuffled; a covered piece moves as the piece of its point and is revealed by that move. Revealed advisors and elephants may leave the palace and cross the river, so the game is wilder than its parent.

Today

The first formal tournament was held in Hong Kong in 2011, written competition rules followed in 2014, with two xiangqi grandmasters as advisers, and in 2016 the Chinese Chess Association took it up. It is played on the big xiangqi apps, in Vietnam as cờ úp, and on PyChess.

Did you know?

Whoever captures a covered piece learns what it was; its owner never does, so a player can lose a chariot without knowing it.

Original piece names

the pieces of xiangqi, face down until they move: covered pieces are called “dark” (暗子), revealed ones “bright” (明子)

Sources: Wikipedia (中文), 揭棋 · 山东象棋网, 关于揭棋的发展历程 (2017) · Tencent 天天象棋, 揭棋玩法说明 (2016) · PyChess

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