Xiangqi Elephant Rant

I downloaded Xiangqi on my phone and played a few games listening to the Chinese music in the game. It took me a while but I have gotten to the point where I can see threats. The game is beginning to make a little bit of sense. Xiangqi has some powerful pieces like the rook and the cannon but there's this one pathetic piece called the elephant. The elephant can only control seven points on your side of the board. It's not allowed to cross the middle. There are ninety points on the board! The elephant is useless! The game itself is named after the elephant. Why? It's not even that great of a piece. Of course if I crossed over to the enemy side of the board I would probably somehow get trampled by elephants. But for the life of me I cannot think of a way to use this worthless piece.

So I just watched a game of xiangqi on YouTube between two xiangqi masters. It turns out the elephants are actually pretty useful. They cover your pieces so they don't get taken. This one player put his elephant in the middle and used it to cover a pawn and his knight. The pieces being protected have to move onto the safe protected point. Also since you have two elephants one covers the other. They're not so useless afterall.

I think they arent allowed to cross because of how the board looks. Kinda weird to make a diagonal turn at the river

It's interesting that in Korean Chess (Janggi) - which can be played on a Chinese board with Chinese pieces - the elephant is a completely different and more active piece. It can move all over the board and has the move of an extended knight, one point orthogonally and then two diagonally, eg c1 to a4/e4/f3 (but the two points in between must be vacant). Some of the other pieces move a bit differently too, but it's the elephant that has the biggest change.

The Chinese elephant is an Alfil with additional limitations about not going into the opponent's board. And yes, it is not very strong. The Alfil is colorbound to 1/8th of an infinite board.

You do get two same-color ones though, so at least they can be used to defend those squares and each other, and someone has to be very desperate to capture a defended Alfil.

Elephant Chess and I have read somewhere that might not be an accurate name, is an interesting variant from common Chess.  I find it interesting that the emperor cannot leave his palace, and his two guards cant leave either.  It has its own strengths and weaknesses compared to chess.   I have not played in years.  But still have my small board.  Thought of learning Shogi but no one plays it here so it is too frustrating having an itch u cant scratch except online.

Be interested in your thoughts after u get more familiar with the game.

I took a look at Janggi. The elephant has a knight-like move that goes farther than the horse and can cross the center of the board. It's interesting but the game ends up having two types of knights. I would miss having bishops playing these games. On the other hand, I think bishops would be too powerful for Xiangqi and Janggi. So maybe the Janggi elephant is better afterall.

The elephant piece is interesting, too bad there isn't a chess variant on chess.com.

Elephant Gambit. To keep the theme.

While “Xiang” (and “qi” basically means chess) could mean elephant, it could also mean tons of other things. There are several theories about the naming, but no one thinks “Xiang” means elephant here iirc.

Ah, this thread is back. An elephant never forgets. Thank you for yor comment @jimlargon. You too @MarioParty4. The Elephant Gambit reminds me of the Scandinavian.

The most important use of Elephants in Xiangqi is blocking Cannon checks. Merely hiding behind Advisors is not good enough to find safety from Cannon attacks. The usual 'castle' for the King puts one Elephant on the central file (on the 'Elephant's Eye', the only square where an Elephant can have 4 moves), and the second Elephant on the back rank, protecting it and blocking attacks from the wings.

As a bonus the Elephant at the Eye guards two squares on its own River bank, which can be instrumental in stopping enemy Pawns from crossing the latter when you have lost your own Pawn on that file.

At some stage of the game there will be so little attacking material left for the opponent that you no longer need full shelter for your King. In that case some of the Elephants or Advisors will become redundant, and you would no longer care whether you lose those, or not.

Note that mutually protection of Elephants can be subverted by placing a piece in between. Which is possible on a Square that cannot be attacked by Advisors. This, and pinning of the defensive pieces by Cannons are the major methods for destroying a castle. Stoming it with Pawns is always helpful; you can always trade away a defensive piece with a Pawn, and if you are lucky even two.

Just one more thing: the best place for elephant happens to be the best place of cannon in the opening stage. It’s more like a style but I usually put cannon instead of elephant there.

Thank you @HGMuller. That's good stuff to know. I can see how an advisor wouldn't be enough to guard against cannon attacks.

Where do your elephants go @jimlargon?

Elephants remind me of the defensive players in soccer @AALIDAR.

@boardmonkey it just stays lol. The most important pieces in Xiangqi are chariots (or rooks), cannons, knights. When doing an aggressive opening, usually only those pieces plus some pawns will be moved in the first 10 or even 15 moves. 

I read Chinese characters are picto-phonetic. They have over 200 phonemes because of the five tones including a neutral tone. English only has about forty phonemes. They have over two hundred radicals which are parts of characters to help you sound out the words. The brush strokes for the characters are sequential. My grandfather who studied Chinese said it was an easy language to learn to speak but very hard to write. The best caligraphers know about 10,000 characters. They started giving a civil service exam somewhere around the Ninth Century in which you had to prove your profiency with the characters. It was a competitive application process. You had to be well educated to get into the Chinese bureaucracy. The West didn't have anything like this at the time except for maybe in the Catholic Church. I think the Chinese were also the first to come up with movable type and the first to use paper money centuries before the West. Fortunately for the West, they had issues with the Mongols and the Muslims who were expanding eastward. The fact the Muslims went east was also good for the West which was frankly retarded compared to other civilizations. The Muslims conquering Byzantium disrupted eastern trade which forced the West to go to sea which eventually lead to the Europeanization of the world. Now the Chinese are coopting trade relations to obtain geopolitical dominance over their region.

The weird part is that elephants actually swim well irl

Yeah, and in my opinion, while the Elephant is an interesting piece, the fact that it can't pass the River makes it somewhat useless and less fun.

The River is a cool concept though. I think if Pawns would be able to move and attack backwards (in addition to left and right) after passing the River it would make the game more interesting.