The Flying Elephant

What does the first move do?

The flying elephant starts with a quiet, defensive move. Red plays 相三进五 (E3+5), or 相七进五 (E7+5) from the other wing, and either way an elephant reaches the centre file. On this page it goes from g0 to e2, where it attacks nothing and guards the other elephant on c0.

Openings can be sorted roughly by their first move into cannon, soldier, elephant and horse openings, and the flying elephant is one of the elephant openings. In the ECCO, the Chinese system of opening codes drawn up in 2004, it has the codes A10 to A39. These belong to class A, which holds the openings that do not start with a central cannon, apart from the pointing finger.

The course line, move by move

The board plays the line that Xiangqi Arena's opening course teaches for the flying elephant. It starts with the opening's standard move, and a computer engine continued it from there. Step through it once, and at each move look at what the moved piece attacks and guards.

The course teaches the line on the left wing. This page mirrors it onto the right wing, where the archive and the standard names of the variations put the opening. Black sets up a central cannon at once, and both sides bring out both horses. By the end, Black's chariots on b9 and h9 attack both of Red's cannons.

How does Black answer?

Black's usual replies are a horse move, a central cannon, a palace-corner cannon, an advisor-corner cannon, or an elephant move to the same side or the opposite side. The board below starts after 相三进五 (E3+5), a position that 2,863 archive games reached. It shows the three replies Black chose most often there: 炮8平4 (C8=4), 炮2平4 (C2=4) and 卒7进1 (P7+1).

Two of those three put a cannon on d7, one from each wing, so as Red you should be ready for a cannon on the corner of Black's palace. Each of the archive's four named lines below starts with one of the usual replies: the advisor-corner cannon, the left central cannon, the palace-corner cannon and the right horse.

Plans and principles

The flying elephant keeps Red's plans open, and it can grow into several set-ups. Among them are the same-side elephant opening (顺相局, shunxiangju) and a set-up in which Red brings out the right horse against Black's left palace-corner cannon. That palace-corner cannon, from h7 to d7, is also Black's reply in the third named line above.

Xiangqi Arena teaches five principles for the opening: bring the chariots out quickly, do not move one piece again and again, do not grab soldiers, keep both wings in balance and do not expose the general. The course line keeps to the first three. Each side brings out a chariot by its third move, no piece moves twice, and neither side captures anything in the twelve moves.

Common mistakes

After the quiet first move, some players keep moving the elephants, or move the same piece again and again. The elephant on e2 already does its job by guarding the elephant on c0, so each extra move gives Black time to bring out another piece. In the course line Red follows the elephant with a horse, a chariot and the second horse, and no piece moves twice.

When Black answers with a central cannon, as in the course line, the cannon on e7 attacks your soldier on e3 over Black's own soldier on e6. A second move that leaves that soldier unguarded lets the cannon take it for free. The course line answers with the horse from b0 to c2, which guards the soldier and brings out a piece in the same move.

Later in the line, your cannon on b6 attacks Black's centre soldier on e6, and taking it looks tempting. Both of Black's horses guard that soldier, so a horse takes your cannon back and you have given a cannon for a soldier. Before you take a soldier in the opening, count the pieces that guard it.

The flying elephant in the archive

The archive holds 2,863 games that open with the flying elephant, out of 29,164 games between human players. Red wins 32% of them, 46% end in a draw and Black wins 22%. A game lasts 43 moves on average.

Across the whole archive, Red wins 37% of the games and 36% are drawn, so you can compare the opening's results with the average game. The player who chose the flying elephant most often as Red is Hu Ronghua, in 217 games, and the best score as Red belongs to Hong Zhi, with 69.4% over 36 games.

An old opening that caught on in the 1980s

The flying elephant is an old opening, but for a long time players regarded it as unorthodox, 左道旁门 (zuodao pangmen). A proverb even said 臭棋乱飞相 (chouqi luan feixiang), "a bad player flies the elephants about". The opening developed and became popular only in the 1980s, through the research of masters led by Hu Ronghua (胡荣华).

Hu Ronghua won the national title at his first national event in 1960, at the age of 15. He held it ten times in a row until 1979 and won it four more times, in 1983, 1985, 1997 and 2000.

He was skilled at several openings, the flying elephant among them. He brought new and deep research to openings that drew little attention, including the flying elephant as Red. He also wrote 胡荣华飞相百局 (Hu Ronghua feixiang baiju), whose title means "Hu Ronghua's hundred flying elephant games".

To make the opening your own, play the course line until the moves come easily. Then try the course's two drills: in one you play the flying elephant as Red, and in the other you defend against it as Black. The opening will not win games by itself, but it gives your pieces a calm start.