How do you play banqi?
Shuffle the thirty-two xiangqi pieces face-down onto half a xiangqi board. The first tile flipped decides the colors. On each turn you either flip one tile or move one of your revealed pieces one square, and you capture by moving onto an enemy piece of equal or lower rank. You win when your opponent has no legal move left.
You can play a game against the computer right now, no account needed.
How is banqi set up on half a xiangqi board?
The board is a 4 by 8 grid, half a xiangqi board, and the thirty-two shuffled pieces fill its squares exactly, every one face-down. Colors are not assigned in advance: whatever color the first flip turns up belongs to the player who flipped it, and the opponent plays the other.
What can you do on your turn?
Flip any face-down tile. It turns over for both players to see, whichever color it turns out to be, and your turn is over.
Move one of your revealed pieces one square up, down, left or right, onto an empty square or onto an enemy piece of equal or lower rank, which captures it. Every piece moves this way, the horse and the chariot included, and none moves diagonally; only the cannon captures differently, by jumping. Face-down tiles block the way and cannot be captured.
What is the piece order, and who captures whom?
Strongest to weakest: general, advisor, elephant, chariot, horse, cannon, soldier. A piece captures an adjacent revealed enemy of equal or lower rank.
Two exceptions: the soldier and the cannon
The soldier captures the general, and the general cannot capture a soldier.
The cannon captures by jumping and ignores rank, as the next section shows. As a target it keeps its place in the order: the horse and every piece above it can take a cannon, and a soldier cannot.
What can the cannon capture in banqi?
The cannon captures along a row or column by jumping exactly one piece, the screen, and taking the first piece beyond it if that piece is a revealed enemy, whatever its rank. Without a capture it moves one square like everything else.
Any piece can be the screen: friendly, enemy, or face-down. With nothing to jump, the cannon cannot capture at all, so a piece right beside it is safe from it.
Can you chain captures in banqi?
No. In standard banqi, the game played on Mistboard and in computer competition, a turn is one flip or one move, so a piece captures at most once per turn.
How do you win at banqi, and when is it a draw?
You win when your opponent has no legal move, usually because every enemy piece is captured, sometimes because they are boxed in. The general is not royal. Capturing it is progress, and play continues until one side is wiped out or stuck.
Mistboard draws a game two ways: 60 plies (single moves) with no flip or capture, or threefold repetition, the same position three times. A flip or capture resets both counters because it changes the position irreversibly.
Repetition and chases
A chase is a quiet move, with no flip and no capture, that threatens to capture the enemy piece that just moved, protected or not. The chasing side may not repeat a position for the third time with a chase unless it has no other legal move, so a chase never ends in a repetition draw; a chase that drives the piece onto new squares is not limited. Why the rule works this way, with games.
Rule variants
Banqi is a folk game and the rules differ by region. Mistboard plays the standard Taiwanese game, the one used in computer competition and on the main banqi sites in Taiwan. If you learned a different ladder, the one on this page is the one the engine and every game on the site follow.
| Region | How it plays |
|---|---|
| Taiwan | The ladder on this page, and a cannon that captures by jumping one screen |
| Hong Kong | Pieces rank general, chariot, horse, cannon, advisor, elephant, soldier, with the cannon inside the ladder |
| Mainland China | The cannon usually does not jump and captures adjacent pieces by rank like everything else |
Mistboard plays none of the common house rules: no chain captures, no cannon firing at a face-down tile (a cannon only captures revealed enemy pieces), and no diagonal horse (every piece moves one square up, down, left or right).
An engine game
MistyBanqi against itself at ten million nodes a move, three times the strength the site’s bot plays at. Step through it with the arrows.
The companion study has all twenty games from the run, one chapter each, with a note on how it went. Two hundred games from the same run are reduced to numbers in Banqi by the Numbers: how big a lead is safe, and when a game is decided.
Common questions
- Can a soldier capture a cannon?
- No. A soldier captures only soldiers and the general. The cannon ranks just above the soldier, so the horse and every piece above it can take a cannon, and a soldier cannot.
- Can a horse capture a chariot?
- No. The chariot outranks the horse. A horse captures horses, cannons, and soldiers.
- Can the horse move or capture diagonally in banqi?
- No. In standard banqi every piece, the horse included, moves one square up, down, left or right. A diagonal horse is a house rule some apps offer as a table option; Mistboard does not use it.
- Can the general capture a soldier in banqi?
- No. The general can capture every enemy piece except a soldier, and a soldier can capture the general.
- Can the cannon capture the general in banqi?
- Yes. The cannon ignores rank: with exactly one piece between them in a straight line, it can capture the general or any other revealed enemy piece.
Play on Mistboard
Play the computer or send a friend a link. No account needed.