Overview

Chinese Chess, or Xiangqi which is the preferred official term, is the most played board game or form of chess in the Orient. Xiangqi is the Hanyu Pinyin for Elephant Chess (xi ng and q respectively) in Chinese. Yet despite its popularity inside Asia, it pales in comparison in the West. Understanding the Elephant: A Xiangqi Primer is a series of books aimed at promoting the game to the West. Many have heard about the story of the blind men touching different parts of an elephant before giving a description of what the thought an elephant would look like. They were all correct and yet they were all wrong at the same time. Understanding the Elephant would hope to take away that blindfold, to allow the reader to see Xiangqi in its full splendour. It also represents the books or information that the author wished he had when he first started learning the game decades ago. In the second part of the series, there will be two sections. The first section is a detailed explanation of the basics of Xiangqi (which is the preferred term for Chinese Chess) can be found. Detailed explanations of the basic terms used in everyday play has been provided with figures wherever possible. The reader would learn basic terminology like the various names of important intersections on the board, the horses when attacking, the names of the different formations involving the cannons, various defensive formations et cetera. Notation is also covered in great detail in the same chapter. The second section would be devoted to the basic kills in Xiangqi. The author has classified over thirty different basic kills for the reader to master. The names of the basic kills, how they are done and examples of the basic kills in actual games by Xiangqi masters and grandmasters have also been collected. There are over a hundred examples with hundreds figures showing different positions with detailed explanations to guide the reader. The original Chinese phrases with Hanyu Pinyin has also been added wherever possible so that interested readers can do their own study. The entire book contains well over four hundred figures. After going through the explanations and examples, the reader should be able to grasp the basics of the game and lay a firm foundation for future play.

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9789574339990

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Jim Png was born in Malaysia but he grew up in Singapore and later went to Taiwan where he finished his medical education and training to become an orthopedic surgeon. His love affair with Xiangqi has lasted for over three decades now. During his school years in Singapore, Jim had been the president of his chess club and also the captain of his Xiangqi team, which had won the Raffles Cup in 1991 and was placed third place in 1993 in the same event. Medicine, the brutal training regiment of an orthopedic surgeon, family and kids forced him to stop playing competitive Xiangqi. Instead, Jim has found another way of sharing his love of Xiangqi with the world, via www.xqinenglish.com, a website that he launched in 2011. Since then, Jim has single-handedly uploaded thousands of puzzles, and hundreds of pages onto his website. The website has over 2300 pages at last count. Feeling that he could do more, Jim has embarked on other ambitious projects. One of these projects was Understanding the Elephant, a series of books representing the Xiangqi primer that he wished he had when he first started learning the game. Another ambitious project which he has ninety percent completed is the world's first lexicon of Xiangqi in English. Today, Jim is still work hard at promoting Xiangqi, often putting in more hours into it than his day job. Jim Png is happily married and has two children.

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