The game of three kingdoms: A chinese Chess Variant

My brother, Maarten Bodlaender, visited in the summer of 1998 China. During this visit, he received as a gift a three-player xiangqi set. Xiangqi is the variant of chess, as it is played in China. Three player variants of the game are already mentioned in Murray's History of Chess, in 1913. The variant my brother showed me seems to be one of the two variants, mentioned by Murray - it represents the battle of the three kingdoms, although there seem to be small differences. Two slightly different three player chess variants are The Game of Three Kingdoms (of which this game seems to be a variant with a somewhat different board) and The Game of Three Friends.

Each player has a standard Xiangqi army. The area in the middle of the board is never occupied; these lines only signify lines that are crossed by the pieces of a player when the move from one of the three `players areas' of the board to another.

The set consisted of a small carton box, plastic pieces, and a very thin plastic board.

The photo's below are given as `thumbnails'; click on these and you can view them in larger size (about 50K size each.)

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Last modified on: January 04, 2001.

Comments

Date	Name	Rating	Comment
2003-12-14	Anthony	None	<P>I like the 3-Kingdom variant & some-friends & I actually reproduce the board & tried many games on it. We applied basic Asian rules to it & take turns clockwise (I don't think this makes any diffence to the game). However, we've met some confusion over the ruling; particularly for the pawn.</P> <P>If the pawn has crossed the river but is still just on the opposite bank & have not move forward; can it then cross to the other opponent's 'river bank' again? Looking at the asian rules, a pawn is forbidden to move backwards period; but moving across the river to another opponents side looks like just a parellel move or a circuitous move to that spot. So what is the correct rule? We have played with this move allowed. Thus if the pawn crosses the river but remain on the 'river bank', it is allowed to crosss & recross the opponent's sides, it CANNOT cross back to its own home but it is allowed to move parellel to the river bank then cross to the other opponents side & do it as many times as neccessary as long as it haven't advanced another forward step. It is very playable thus & gives the pawn a bigger fighting power; which gives the game a more interesting twist. <B> But the question is which is the right rule?</B></P> <P><B>I would appreciate it if the instructions on the board in the photos provided can be produced in a much bigger form so the instructions are readable.</B> Perhaps then the confusion can be answered.</P> <P>Regards<BR> Anthony</P> <P>PS:The pieces in 3-Kingdom are relatively stronger than the normal chinese chess pieces. Think about it, a horse can cover 8 spots in the traditional version; in 3-Kingdoms, in some instances it can actually cover 12 spots and additional 4 spots.</P>

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Photo's of a three player Xiangqi set

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