Setup
Set each general face-up on its normal palace point. Shuffle each side's other fifteen pieces and deal them face-down onto the remaining starting points. Neither player knows any hidden identities, including their own.
First moves use starting points
Before reveal, a dark piece uses the role of the starting point it occupies, not its hidden identity. A dark piece on a corner point plays like a chariot; dark pieces on horse, advisor, elephant, cannon, and soldier points use those matching moves.
The normal restrictions still apply to that first move: horse legs, elephant eyes, cannon screens, palace limits for advisor points, and the river limit for elephant points. Once the move resolves, the piece flips face-up for both players.
Revealed pieces use identity
After reveal, use the piece's identity from its current point. Advisors may leave the palace, and elephants may cross the river. Their movement shapes do not change: advisors step one point diagonally; elephants move two points diagonally and are still eye-blocked.
Horses, chariots, and cannons move normally. Soldiers use the normal river rule from wherever they reveal: forward only before crossing, forward or sideways after crossing, never backward.
Captured dark pieces
If a dark piece is captured before revealing, only the capturer learns what it was. The owner sees one dark piece leave the board, but not its identity. Later, the capturer can rule out that hidden identity elsewhere.
This reference uses the common Jieqi convention: the capturer sees it. Some cờ úp groups handle captured dark pieces differently, so agree on the convention before over-the-board play.
Checks, wins, and draws
Every occupied point is visible, so players can see when the general is attacked. An unmoved dark piece attacks from its starting point using that point's role. Once it moves, it reveals immediately; any check from the destination uses the revealed identity.
Win by checkmating the general or leaving the opponent with no legal move. The facing-generals rule still applies, and dark pieces block the file like any other piece.
Repetition follows xiangqi long-beat rules, not a generic threefold or fourfold result. Perpetual check and direct perpetual chase are forbidden, so the forcing side must change course or lose; mutual forcing and ordinary repeated positions are judged by the xiangqi cycle, not by board equality alone. The automatic draw convention in this reference is the Guangdong/Tencent no-capture clock: 60 full moves, meaning 120 plies, without a capture.
A sample game
Step through a full self-play game below. Dark pieces show as colored backs and flip to their dealt identity the first time they move, so a corner that plays like a chariot can reveal a soldier. Red wins by checkmate.
Names
揭棋 is Mandarin jiēqí, meaning reveal chess. Luo Jinsheng of Guangzhou invented it in the 1980s. Vietnamese play commonly calls this family cờ úp.
English names overlap. Dark Chinese chess may refer to jieqi, but it can also mean banqi, a different half-board flip game. Jieqi keeps the full xiangqi board and checkmate goal; banqi uses a 4x8 board, rank captures, and elimination.
Mistboard also uses Dark Xiangqi and Dark Mini Xiangqi for our Fog of War xiangqi variants. Those are not jieqi: identities stay known, but unseen points are hidden. We have not found an earlier public playable platform for Fog of War xiangqi.
Where to next
Jieqi is playable on Mistboard — take on PikaJieQi, our jieqi engine, at the strength you pick. For the base game, read xiangqi; for the other face-down xiangqi cousin, compare banqi.