Chess of the World
Most of you are familiar with Western chess. But other parts of the world play different types of chess-like strategy games. Most of the games follow the similar concept: Each player has pieces that can move in certain ways. The object is to capture the opponent's king by surrounding it so that it can no longer move. This article explores the various different types of chess.
Western Chess
Consists of an 8x8 black and white checker board with pieces such as pawn, rook, horse, bishop, queen, and king. Each piece moves in different way, but each piece can capture any other piece. See rules and tactics on Wikipedia.
Chinese Chess (Xiangqi)
Chinese chess is known as Xiangqi. The pieces includes generals, guards, elephant, horse, rook, cannon, and solider. Like Western chess, the board is also an 8x8 grid. But the grid is uncolored, because the pieces move along the lines of the grid instead of on the squares of the grid. There is a few diagonal lines that represents the General's palace where the General can move along. The general is restricted to move only within the palace. There is also a "river" on the board as well which the elephant piece can not cross. Hence this game is also loosely known as "elephant chess". More info can be found on wikipedia.
Japanese Chess (Shogi)
This game is played on a 9x9 grid with pieces consisting of king, rook, bishop, gold generals, silver generals, knights, lances, and pawns. It has the interesting rule where captured enemy pieces can be returned to play as allied pieces.
More Chess Variants
See more chess variants such as multi-player chess and three-dimensional chess.
