Chinese Chess: An Introduction To The Openings

C. K. Lai is a well known Xiangqi player and enthusiast who has written and translated a dozen books on the subject, and is still writing, though less frequently nowadays. There was a time when he produced two books a year, among them his first book Chinese Chess, An Introduction To The Openings, Checkmate In Two, and Chess Of The Wuzhi Mountain (in collaboration with Mr. Shu Ming Li of San Francisco). Translations include Chinese Chess, The Endgame Technique, Victories All The Way, and Fifty Games Of GM Li Laiqun. With a few Xiangqi friends he promoted the game in Britain some two decades ago, helping to create the UK Chinese Chess Association. He is certainly at the forefront of promotion of the game in Britain. One of C. K. Lai's high achievements in Xiangqi competitions was in 1994 when he won the 11th European Xiangqi Championship held in Amsterdam. He also won on several occasions the UK Xiangqi Championship. He is Editor of Chinese Chess Cyber Newsletter, a simple web site based in London which attracts many Xiangqi followers.

Chinese Chess: An Introduction To The Openings

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Chinese Chess: An Introduction to China's Ancient Game of Strategy

Chinese chess, or ôelephant chess,ö has intrigued the powerful and the quizzical for centuries. Although its rules are similar to the well-known Western game, subtle and fascinating variations must be mastered in order to understand the strategies it requires.

H. T. Lau breaks the silence of decades of publishing on this game and introduces Chinese chess to Westerners, discussing with the aid of 170 diagrams the board, the movement and values of the pieces, and basic rules for capturing and defeating an opponent.

This book includes eighty mid- and end-game excercises designed to sharpen playing skills, and concludes with two appendixes devoted to the elegantly constructed games found in The Secret Inside the Orange and The Plum-Blossom Meter, two classic seventeenth-century works on Chinese chess.


Chinese Chess: An Introduction to China's Ancient Game of Strategy

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