Features of Xiangqi Arena
On Xiangqi Arena you can play a casual game as a guest, solve the daily puzzle and browse an archive of 32,204 games without an account. With a free account you can also play rated games, work through 92 lessons and drills and solve puzzles on a rated ladder. The site is available in 4 languages.
Games against people and the computer
You can play rated and casual games against other people, or practise against the computer. Each rated game changes your Elo rating.
- Your Elo rating places you in a rank tier, from Silver to Diamond.
- You choose the total time, the increment after every move and the limit for any single move.
- A direct challenge goes to a player by username, and you choose which side you play.
- Open tables are listed on the tables page, and you can sit down at any of them.
- The computer plays at 10 strengths, from Beginner to Grandmaster.
- During a game you can chat, offer a draw, ask to take back a move or resign, and after it you can offer a rematch.
92 lessons and drills
Each lesson sets up a position on the board and checks the moves you make. The course begins with the board and the pieces and goes on to complete opening systems.
- The 55 drills run from how the horse moves to tactics such as the discovered check, and they also include opening lines that you play move by move.
- The 20 opening systems include the Central Cannon and the Screen Horses.
- The 12 checkmate lessons teach the classical named patterns, such as the Cannon Behind the Horse.
Puzzle training
Each puzzle sets up a position in which you have to find the best move.
- The campaign is a series of levels that get harder as you go, and solving puzzles in one level opens the next.
- Rated puzzles change a puzzle rating that is separate from your game rating.
- Every player gets the same daily puzzle.
- In Puzzle Storm you solve as many puzzles as you can before the clock runs out, and the best scores go on a leaderboard.
An archive of 32,204 games
Of the 32,204 games, 12,003 come from Chinese national events between 1990 and 2008, and the rest are undated master and engine games. You can follow an opening through the archive and have the engine analyse any game.
- You can browse all 32,204 games by player or by opening, and filter a player's games by opponent, result or decade.
- The opening explorer is built from the archive and shows how each opening scores.
- The engine can review any game and report each side's accuracy, an evaluation graph, the best move at every turn and a grade for each move played.
- If both players agree before the game, either of them can ask the engine for hints. When only one player uses them, that player gains less rating for a win and loses more for a loss.
Free and paid plans
Rated and casual games, watching, the rankings and challenges are free, and you can use them as often as you like. The rankings, finished games, player profiles, the master game archive and the daily puzzle are open to visitors without an account too, with five archive replays a day. The free plan also includes the piece courses, the rules lessons and the first five opening systems, and in the puzzle campaign it includes every Basic Mates level and the first Advanced Mates level. It allows three engine analyses a week and five archive replays a day. The paid plans open the other lessons and campaign levels, plan by plan, and raise these limits.
Compare plans →Settings for the board and the site
You can choose from 4 board themes, 4 piece sets and 13 sound collections. The site is available in 4 languages: English, Vietnamese, and Chinese in simplified or traditional characters.
Play your first game
The game runs in your browser, so there is nothing to install. You can play a casual game as a guest, or create a free account to play rated games.
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