I have the following English books on Chinese Chess:
Chinese Chess for beginners, by Sam Sloan, I**** Press, 1989
The Chinese Chess For Beginners Volume One, by Chen-Chih Sun,
published
by The Suns, 1974
Chinese Chess End-Stage Patterns, by Tin-Hung So, published by the
author, 1976
I suspect that all three of those books are out of print.
Good luck,
Charlie
"Joss Wright" <joss@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:9ut9s4x3ej.ln2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Hi,
>
>> (I posted a similar note in rec.games.chinese-chess but received no
>> response.)
>
> I usually have rec.games.chinese-chess in my list of newsgroups, but
took
> it out only a few days ago. I must have missed your post there.
Apologies
> to rec.games.go people for the off-topic post. I have followed up to
> rec.games.chinese-chess as well, so any further replies should probably
go
> there.
>
> I actually played a game last night at Go club with some guests from
> Taiwan that I have staying, which is quite a coincidence.
>
>> 1) (Can't help)
>
>> 2) Can anyone provide me with a list of texts regarding Xiang Qi
>> that are available in English?
>
> I have all the xiangqi books in English that I've managed to find! There
> are certainly not many. Here are the books that I own:
>
> "Chinese Chess" by H.T. Lau (Tuttle)
> "First Syllabus on Xiangqi - Chinese Chess 1" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Cannon - Chinese Chess 2" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Elephant - Chinese Chess 3" by David H. Li
(Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Pawn - Chinese Chess 4" by David H. Li (Premier)
> "Xiangqi Syllabus on Horse - Chinese Chess 5" by David H. Li (Premier)
>
> The "Syllabus on Xiangqi" series is quite comprehensive and contains
quite
> a few game records, as well as in-depth discussions of strategy and
> tactics. I haven't read them all cover-to-cover, though.
>
> Books, equipment and software for xiangqi can be bought from
> www.yutopian.com. They have quite a nice range, although they do tend to
> list things that are permanently out of stock.
>
>> 3) (Can't help.)
>
>> 4) Where should I go to learn of the history and culture of the
>> game? I imagine that there must be in Xiang Qi's history colorful
>> characters, famous games/tournaments, renowned strategic successes and
>> failures, etc., as there are in Western chess.
>
> The only advice that I can give here is that you'll probably need to
know
> Chinese! From what I've gathered by talking to some Chinese friends of
> mine, Xiangqi is something that nearly everyone knows how to play and is
> regarded as a fun game; it doesn't seem to have the same feeling of
> intellectual status and intimidation that chess in the West and weiqi in
> China have -- everyone can play xiangqi but "you have to be very clever"
> to play weiqi!. Of course, it's more popular with old people and, to an
> extent, younger children.
>
> As far as I am aware, there isn't quite such a culture of writing and
> publi****ng books about xiangqi as there is for weiqi or chess. I imagine
> that plenty of books exist, but I think there's a much smaller body of
> literature than for weiqi.
>
> H.J.R. Murray's "A History of Chess" has a brief section about xiangqi.
> Whilst some of the scholar****p in that book seems in retrospect to have
> been slightly dubious, it's certainly an interesting reference. Oddly
> enough, Murray decides that the "?" (xiang) in xiangqi refers to
"figure"
> rather than "elephant", which goes against everything that I've heard
from
> other sources. He then decides that "xiangqi" means "figure chess",
> referring to the fact that it was originally played with figures rather
> than flat counters. He uses this as evidence that it was derived from
the
> Indian game. This isn't necessarily wrong, but it's not very well
> sup****ted either. Murray makes a few assumptions about the origin of the
> game, and dismisses as "confused" some historical sources that
contradict
> his view. Good, Victorian scholar****p. :o)
>
>> 5) What are the best computer programs for Xiang Qi?
>
> I've heard of, but not used, Qianhong ("Light Red" -- a pun on "Deep
> Blue"). It's freeware (for windows) and seems to be an ongoing project.
> Possibly the best known is XieXie: http://cc-xiexie.com/.
There are also
> quite a few implementations for Palm/Windows Mobile. I have quite a good
> implementation on my Windows Mobile phone that is just called "Chinese
> Chess", and is published by ZingMagic.
>
>> 6) What are the best web sites (in English) for Xiang Qi?
>
> You can play online in realtime at www.clubxiangqi.com. I play there
> (very) occasionally. I play most of my games on www.brainking.com.
>
>> 7) Is Daniel H. Li, author of The Genealogy of Chess still alive?
>> How may he be contacted.
>
> I assume that you mean David H. Li. There's a wikipedia page about him
> here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Li.
He seems still to be
> alive! I imagine that you can find contact details by searching in
Google,
> although he's retired.
>
> I hope that this helps!
>
> Joss
>
> PS: On a slightly related note, if you're interested in Hong Kong
cinema,
> there's quite a fun martial arts film called "The Mystery of Chess
Boxing"
> that is based around xiangqi.
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