Janggi (Korean Chess)

How to Play Janggi (Korean Chess)

Janggi is the Korean form of chess, played on a board of 9 files and 10 ranks where the pieces stand on the intersections of the lines rather than inside the squares — the same idea as its cousin Xiangqi (Chinese Chess), but with its own distinct pieces, its own board geometry, and several rules found nowhere else in the chess family, like cannons that can jump along a palace’s diagonal lines and a friendly rule that lets you skip your turn. Two armies — Han (漢, red) and Cho (楚, blue) — face off across the board, each defending a fortified 3×3 palace with its General at the centre of the action.

Objective

Checkmate the enemy General — trap it so that it is under attack and has no legal move, block or capture that gets it out of check. A game can also end in a draw: by the special "facing Generals" rule (bikjang), by 50 moves without a capture, or by the same position repeating three times.

Setup

Each side starts with 1 General, 2 Guards, 2 Elephants, 2 Horses, 2 Chariots, 2 Cannons and 5 Soldiers. Han (red) sits along the bottom three ranks and Cho (blue) along the top three ranks, in a mirrored arrangement: Chariot, Horse, Elephant, Guard, —, Guard, Elephant, Horse, Chariot on the back rank, the General at the centre of the palace just in front of it, the two Cannons two ranks further forward, and five Soldiers spread out one more rank ahead, on every other file. Han always moves first. (In tournament play, before the game each side may freely swap their inner Horse and Elephant, giving four possible starting arrangements per side — a pre-game negotiation this casual same-screen and vs-Computer version leaves out in favour of the classic symmetric setup; see the FAQ below.)

The pieces and how they move

• General (漢/楚) — moves exactly one point along the drawn lines of its own palace, including the diagonal lines, but can never step outside the palace. It is the only piece that can never leave its 3×3 fortress, and, being confined there, it can never give check to the enemy General itself.
• Guard (士) — moves exactly like the General: one point along any drawn palace line, including the diagonals, and never leaves its own palace either. Two Guards start on either side of the General, shielding it.
• Elephant (象) — leaps one point straight, then two points further diagonally in that same direction (a long 1-then-2 move). It is blocked if any piece — friend or foe — sits on either of the two points along the way, and, unlike its Xiangqi cousin, it may cross anywhere on the board; there is no river to stop it.
• Horse (馬) — leaps one point straight, then one point diagonally outward, like a shorter cousin of a chess knight’s move. It is blocked if a piece sits on the single straight point right next to it — a Horse can always be neutralised just by putting something in its way one step ahead.
• Chariot (車) — slides in a straight line, as far as it likes, exactly like a chess rook, stopping only when it reaches the edge of the board or meets another piece (capturing it if it’s an enemy). While standing on one of the palace’s diagonal points, it may also slide straight along that diagonal line, all the way to the opposite corner.
• Cannon (包) — the most unusual piece in the game. A Cannon can never move to (or capture on) a plain adjacent point the way a Chariot does; every single move it makes, capture or not, must leap over exactly one other piece — friend or foe — called the "screen". It slides up to the screen, jumps it, and may then land on any further empty point, or capture the very next piece beyond the screen if that piece is an enemy. A Cannon can never use another Cannon as its screen, and can never capture another Cannon, screen or no screen. It may also jump the length of a palace diagonal, using whatever sits on the centre point as its screen.
• Soldier (兵/卒) — advances one point straight forward, or one point directly sideways (left or right); it can never move backward. Once a Soldier reaches one of the diagonal points inside either palace, it also gains the extra option of stepping one point diagonally forward along that palace’s drawn line. Soldiers never promote; they keep moving the same way for the rest of the game, however far they advance.

The palace and its diagonal lines

Each side’s back three ranks include a 3×3 "palace" with both diagonals of the square actually drawn on the board, corner to corner through the centre point. These drawn diagonals are what let the General, Guards and Chariots move on a slant inside the palace, and they’re exactly where a Cannon can make its one and only diagonal jump — over the centre point, from one corner to the opposite one. Outside the palace, there are no diagonal lines at all, and no piece may cut across on a slant there, other than the Horse’s and Elephant’s own leaping patterns and a Soldier once it reaches a palace diagonal.

Special rules

• A Cannon’s screen can be any piece at all, friend or enemy, but it can never be another Cannon — and a Cannon can never capture another Cannon, even across a perfectly good screen.
• Soldiers can step sideways as well as forward, but never backward — and gain a diagonal-forward option only on the drawn lines inside a palace.
• You may deliberately skip your turn and Pass, as long as your own General is not currently in check. It’s a legitimate way to wait for your opponent to commit to something when you’d rather not weaken your own position.
• If a move leaves the two Generals staring straight at each other down a completely open file — nothing at all standing between them — that’s called bikjang ("facing Generals"). Tradition treats it as the moving side quietly offering a draw that the position itself accepts on the spot, so the game immediately ends in a draw the instant it happens, even in the middle of what looks like a winning attack.

Winning and draws

Checkmate the enemy General to win outright. The game is drawn if bikjang occurs (see above), if 100 half-moves (50 full moves by each side) pass without a single capture, or if the exact same position, with the same side to move, occurs for the third time. These last two draw rules are the same practical, chess-style safeguards used elsewhere on this site in place of Janggi’s more elaborate tournament adjudication for perpetual chases and checks — they comfortably cover any realistic repeating sequence while keeping games from dragging on forever.

Playing against the computer

Choose Easy, Normal or Expert before you start. Easy plays quickly and deliberately throws in a weaker move now and then, so it’s very beatable; Normal thinks a little harder and blunders less often; Expert searches deeper and plays every move at full strength within a strict time/move budget, so it never keeps you waiting and never hangs. Beat the computer to earn ranking points — Easy is worth 10, Normal 30 and Expert 100 — synced to your account when you’re online.

Strategy tips

• Keep your General’s escape squares defended before you go on the attack — a General with nowhere to run is one check away from disaster.
• Cannons are much stronger with a friendly piece already in front of them to use as a screen — don’t be afraid to leave a Soldier or Guard sitting where a Cannon can hop over it.
• Watch out for discovered Cannon checks: moving a piece that’s shielding your own General from an enemy Cannon can hand over check even though the piece you moved never went near your General.
• Trade off the opponent’s Elephants and Horses when you can — with the leaping pieces gone, your Chariots and Cannons get a much freer run at the enemy palace.

Frequently asked questions