Piece values and good trades

The standard values

The consensus scale, with the soldier as the unit: chariot 9, cannon 4.5, horse 4, elephant 2, advisor 2, soldier 1 before crossing the river and 2 after. The general has no exchange value - losing it is losing - but as the endgame guide shows, its fighting power on an open file is real. The chariot’s dominance is the scale’s loudest message: it is worth two of any minor piece, and "winning the exchange" (chariot for horse or cannon) is close to a soldier-and-a-half of pure profit.

Treat the numbers as a court of first appeal. They settle routine decisions instantly and correctly; the sections below are for the appeals process.

Why values move: cannons fade, horses grow

A cannon needs screens to capture, and screens are other pieces: as the board empties, the cannon’s effective value slides while the horse - ever less blockable as legs clear - climbs past it. Openings favour cannons, endings favour horses, and the crossover usually arrives with the second wave of trades. The practical rule professionals actually use: prefer the cannon while both sides’ structures stand, prefer the horse once they fall.

Pairs carry premiums of their own: two cannons on one file mate by themselves (see the stacked cannons pattern), and the horse pair covers each other’s blocking squares. Breaking an opponent’s pair at even material is often the point of an otherwise equal trade.

Judging an exchange

Three questions turn the table into a decision. What changes for the pieces that remain - does the trade open a file for my chariot or clear a leg for their horse? What changes for the defence - advisors and elephants are worth their listed 2 in an ending and closer to 4 while a mating attack is on, because they are the mating attack’s obstacle. And what changes for the soldiers - trades that let a crossed soldier survive to the endgame quietly bank the two ghosts pattern from the checkmate guide.

The commonest club-level error is trading pieces while ahead in material but behind in coordination: simplification favours the side whose remaining pieces cooperate, not the side with the bigger inventory.

Living with imbalance

Chariot against two minors, cannon-and-soldier against horse-and-elephant, three crossed soldiers against a horse: xiangqi’s middlegames are full of stable imbalances, and playing them well means knowing which side of the imbalance the clock favours. Two minors beat the chariot when they can attack together; the chariot wins as targets multiply. A material deficit with the initiative is the best imbalance of all - and, as the opening guides repeat system by system, the worst thing to do with an initiative is spend it buying the material back.