Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

'As I stated in my last post, the observation that Xiangqi has no divergent pieces in it until the cannon does not apply because Xiangqi's earliest known version had only 1 counselor and no minister.'
What is the connection?
'This progression from 11 pieces to 14 to 16 where 8x8 chess always had 16 to begin with and had the same moving pieces (not counting cannon) means that Xiangqi predates and influenced 8x8 Chess.'
As it's a different 16 pieces in each case the comparison is irrelevant. Shogi (20 pieces aside) is older than Diana (only 12 pieces aside).

'The issue with the pawn in 8x8 Chess capturing differently than it moves does not necessarily mean that the game is older than Xiangqi.'
No, but it could be that the Pawn structure was abandoned to open up the back rank and ionce that happened all that was required was something to stop the Rooks capturing each other - something which no longer needed to be as complicated as a Pawn. Or perhaps the Pawn had a non-divergent predecessor even on the 8x8 board, but was reduced in number in China to improve back-rank mobility before being replaced by the Pawn in India to improve front-rank interactions.

'I also noted step by step how Xiangqi developed, and there is no apparent influence from 8x8 chess, and 8x8 Chess looks like a more modern version of Xiangqi.'
Yes. but how? To what documentation do you refer? Most of us have seen back to Chaturanga in India and 8x8 race games before that, but only back to 14-piece Xiang Qi in China. Chaturanga does not look consistently more modern. A point that you yourself made, that the Elephant nearer the King does not work so well in Chaturanga, could be used as an argument that the files were expanded to 9 to make the side that did not work match the one that did, and the pieces moved from squares to intersections to save making a new board.

'It seems like I am using common sense logic, and I am being refuted with a different kind of logic that I could not have come up with unless I saw the responses to my posts here.'
Well to me it looks as if everyone else's logic is common sense.

'I am giving a great deal of detail, and it seems that I am getting back a line of logic that is making my head spin.'
Again, the feeling is mutual.

'Why does a more modern pawn in 8x8 chess have to be from something other than a simple moving pawn in Xiangqi?'
See comments above. The fact that I have to say this indicates that your 'great deal of detail' tends to be poorly organised and consequently repetitive.

'It's like saying that because Xiangqi has no queen in it, then it must be the newer game because it has older moving pieces in it like the counselor meaning that 8x8 Chess is an older game because it requires more change to get where it needs to be.'
No, that is what saying that Xiang Qi is an older game because it is better developed is like.

'That kind of thinking is prevalent here instead of the more obvious line of logic that a 1 space moving counselor is probably from a game that requires a 1 space moving counselor for the game to work right.'
Well it does 'work right' in Chaturanga, and so does the Elephant beside it. It is just the Elephant beside the King that doesn't, and inserting an extra Ferz in between (and therefore an extra file) addresses this.

I don't think that the original 16 pieces in 8x8 Indian chess has no
relationship with Xiangqi. Only the King moves slightly differently and the
rest of the back rank pieces move the same but can jump in 8x8 chess due to
the pawns being on the 2nd rank.

The difference in pawns is not a strong argument I am putting forth. I am
aware of the fact that a different capturing pawn and different position
pawn is not necessarily directly influenced from Xiangqi. My main point
about game development is that the 1 space moving counselor and 2 space
moving minister don't appear to fit the 8x8 board but they do for the 9x10
intersection board. It's also very unlikely that weird moving pieces would
be developed on a board they don't fit and were fixed by moving to a
slightly different board.

To make this kind of conjecture seems like putting forth something that is
not extremely likely just to make it seem like that is what could have
happened so it probably happened.

I have read Western chess books on Shogi and Xiangqi and I have heard
similar arguments for how Shogi and Xiangqi could have been developed. They
all try to reverse engineer from the 8x8 game. I do think Shogi comes from
an 8x8 variant similar to Makruk with the silver general, but it does not
seem that logical that original 8x8 with 16 pieces could have become
Xiangqi for several reasons I have already stated.

I am not saying that these reasons you are stating don't make sense. I am
saying that in order to make conclusions about Xiangqi, one should look at
China's history regarding the development of the game. The documentation
does not suggest that China exported the game to Persia or India. To my
knowledge there is nothing that suggests that.

I have given you guys several reasons for why Xiangqi's origin is native
to China without making definite but probable conclusions on how it could
have influenced 8x8 chess in other parts of Asia.

Therefore, if Xiangqi can be predated by to an 11 piece arrangement with no
minister that moves 2 spaces, and the general on the 2nd rank like in
Janggi, then it is obviously not taken from 16 piece Indian chess with the
back rank filled, because its very unlikely that pieces would disappear
along the way.

Now the legitimacy of this progression of Xiangqi needs to be confirmed and
I would like to do that myself, but if this progression of Xiangqi is true,
then it does not follow that the board and the pieces are from India or
Persia.

Also, I have already pointed out that a 9x10 intersection board most likely
does not come from an 8x8 square board. Because if you simply move the
pieces from an 8x8 board to the intersection points, you get 9x9
intersection board. You do not get 9x10.

And the original Xiangqi was 9x10 with no river. I repeat. No river. That
means, the river was added later to separate the 2 armies, so it was not
the addition of the river that made Xiangqi go from 9x9 intersection point
game to 9x10 intersection game.

In Taiwan, they sell Xiangqi boards on a cheap piece of wood with a Weiqi
board on the back. If one looks at the 19x19 Weiqi board and then flips it
over, the comparison would be obvious. Not just because of intersection
points being used for both Weiqi and Xiangqi, but because where did 9x10
come from? Why not 9x9 or 10x10, or 8x9?

It's because 9x10 is precisely 1/4 of a 19x19 Weiqi board. That's the
simplest explanation for where the original 9x10 intersection board with no
river comes from.

If Xiangqi comes from 8x8 chess, then the first version of Xiangqi would
probably be 9x9 intersection board with no river and no palace. But it was
not.

Anyway, I have stated many reasons for why Xiangqi's origin basically
comes from China and there should be nothing wrong with that because all I
am doing is asking Chinese people about the origin of their own game and
reading books and whatever I can find on the subject done by people who can
read Chinese and not just sources from the Western world.

What I am sharing here should be viewed as the other side of the story that
is lacking in Western literature or Western thought you could say. I grew
up in the States, and I was lacking in these views also.

I'm personally disappointed when my quest to learn about the history of
game(s) becomes a political and cultural battlefield for the superiority of
the Western vs. Eastern cultures. I'm not saying that about everyone on
this forum, but just my personal experience with talking to Westerners
about this. It seems very emotional and narrow minded the way that many of
them respond and it seems like they couldn't care less about archeological
findings are the meaning of Chinese characters and how they can change over
the centuries, etc. It seems it can only be about how British ruled the
world and codified things for the rest of the world to enjoy. I love
learning about that also, but it's not the entire history of mankind.

http://history.chess.free.fr/papers/Banaschak%201997.pdf

Here is a good paper from a German researcher that has a strong usage of
Chinese to actually examine the origin of Xiangqi directly.

The author has been quoted as disputing David Li's theory of Xiangqi
coming specifically from a general from the end of the Warring States
Period and does not necessarily subscribe to any particular theory.

Unfortunately, Banaschak is misquoted in places as a researcher who is
disputing that Xiangqi has a Chinese origin. This is certainly not his
position. He is simply disputing David Li's theory and not that Xiangqi
has a Chinese origin.

From his paper, it looks as if he personally believes that Xiangqi has a
Chinese origin, but concludes there is not enough evidence to prove any of
the possible theories of its origin but believes that future archeological
findings could support one theory or another.

I was not aware of Murray's conclusions regarding Xiangqi, but he seems to
have found a way of saying that references towards Xiangqi are a different
game based on the constellations or something and that the new game from
India was simply given the same name.

By speculating that there were multiple games named Xiangqi, as it appears
in Chinese, the historical references to Xiangqi that pre-date 8x8 Chess in
India or Persia are essentially nullified from a literary perspective.

It's quite a devil's advocate argument because it means that references
to Xiangqi before 6th century essentially don't count because that could
be a different game whereas references after the 6th century to Xiangqi
mean the current game we call Xiangqi now. Seems convenient, but as far as
I know there isn't another kind of Chinese game that was named Xiangqi at
some point. I haven't seen anything in a museum or any kind of artifact of
a different kind of game that was called Xiangqi before the 'copied Indian
version' came to China.

As far as I know, the name of the game does not have anything to do with
constellations or astronomy. Until I had read Murray's theory, I have
never heard of anything like that from any Chinese historian with any
knowledge of Xiangqi.

The river in the middle of the board is most commonly interpreted as a
river of a key battle that took place between 2 armies just before the
founding of the Han dynasty.

Instead of looking at Chinese history, Murray seems to want to point at the
Milky Way as being the explanation of the occurrence of the river in
Xiangqi.

As far as I know, the river was put in later on (probably during the Han
Dynasty). That's the simplest explanation. I'm kind of surprised that
Murray did not or was not able to find out what the name of the river meant
to any Chinese historian or any Chinese person with a basic high school
education that would know about how the Han Dynasty was founded.

Or rather it seems to me, that Murray wants to attribute another game which
does not seem to exist to astronomy instead of a historical battle that
took place at least 600 or 700 years before 8x8 Chess appears in India.

Murray poses the possibility that there were different games in China
called Xiangqi, but as far as I know, there was nothing else called Xiangqi
from that period of time.

In my opinion, if he is going to make this kind of assertion, some kind of
clue as to what this so-called game(s) were like would be helpful. However,
it seems he just wanted to discredit China as a possibility when in fact
its the most obvious choice because its design is based on a battle that
took place several hundred years before Chess in India happens.

I also think its kind of surprising that Murray would make such strong
conclusions about Xiangqi without even trying to figure out what the
characters mean in modern Chinese. While the meaning of Chinese character
often change over a long period of time, and it can have multiple meanings,
I wonder why he came to the conclusion that it was based on astronomy and
not 'atmosphere' or 'live and moving' pieces as opposed to static in
Weiqi (Go).

It seems that Murray knows ancient Chinese better than Chinese people who
can actually read Chinese, because if I started telling people that Xiangqi
2000 years ago was based on astronomy instead of actual battles that were
taking place at that time, they'd think I was crazy because it's common
sense that a war game would be based on.... war.

A chariot goes straight forward. The ancient character for chariot is a
pictograph of a chariot with 2 wheels on it. In the Spring and Autumn
period, it was the strongest weapon in the battlefield.

These more common sense interpretations seem much more plausible rather
than pieces being based on stars, etc.

There seems to be a conflict in the reverse engineering of Xiangqi. Instead
of reverse engineering it to a very simple game with just a few pieces
based on actual people on horses or chariots fighting in battles, we are
supposed to believe that there's this other game that does not seem to
exist in China called Xiangqi, and then a modern version of Xiangqi was
developed quickly in the 6th century so that earlier designs of Xiangqi
which have only 11 pieces on each side to start with are discarded and not
considered.

Based on this logic, any reference to anything can be interpreted as being
something else without a plausible explanation to what that other thing
called the 'same thing' is.

I honestly feel the standards for a game being developed in India are
extremely flexible in terms of interpretation, while the standards for
China are extremely strict almost as if unless a very specific blue print
is presented, there's no way a game based on war could be developed from a
society that fought wars like that and liked to play board games also.

In "Encyclopedia of absolute and relative knowledge" by popular French writer Bernard Werber, there is a short article about chess. Well, one should read this "encyclopedia" spectically, as it's philisophical tone confidently states some things that are not necessary true, and Werber could copy other people's mistakes, lie or speculation, and in the beggining of this article it's said that Chaturanga's first mention is found in 1000 BC, wich already makes to doubt about the rest article, but anyway, I'll ask about it.

It's said that Chaturanga is an ancestor of chess, cards and dominoes(!). It's said, it used dice with four symbols of four Indian castes: cups for priests, swords for warriors, sticks for peasants, coins for merchants. I know that these symbols was used in Indian cards, and in Europe they evolved to card suits we know (cups = hearts, swords = spades, coins - diamonds, sticks = clubs). But I never heard about connection between chess and Indian castes or card suits. Are there any serious sources to prove it?

Another interesting but very doubtful guess in this book (well, at least it said that it's only the guess) is that number four - of castes, card suits and chess pieces, is somehow linked with four DNA nucleotides - Thymine, Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine.

The nonsense book of the week.

That chess ever was a dice game is wrong, let alone the other points

Or is this book a kind of Uncyclopedia?

This Morality, http://www.chessvariants.org/fiction.dir/poems/falconpoem9.html, from 13 years ago cites in the last Pleiad Calaeno (of Rook, of Saturn, of metal Lead, of bird rook and raven, of 7 Wonders Mausoleum and so on) the same bases for pairs T, A, C and G in another number four arrangement.  In renewal of the well-known Chaturanga four, the claim arrogantly re-stated by Calaeno is that there are the four fundamental Chess pieces obviously from different mutually exclusive destination squares by the R N B and F.  In fact, this Poem would claim Chess itself as first or necessary cause of the universe which follows, let alone mere billion-year Life inception.

An excellent for the great rewrite.

A poorish game by modern standards, especially due to the alfil pieces, but modern chess is indebted to this historic early version of it.

My rating is specific to the Davidson Variation of Chaturanga.

If Davidson was correct (about Kings being able to move into check and to be captured), this would make an interesting alternative evolution story from Chaturanga to Shatranj, which makes a nicer transition story from Chaturanga to Shatranj to Chess.

Chaturanga - Davidson Variation (Rule Enforcing) Presets:

• Original ashtapada Indian board.
• Alternate uncheckered plain Persian board (without ashtapada markings).

Is anyone else finding weird similarities between Chaturanga (Davidson's variantion) and Makruk?

Why didn't I tag this with Rules: Stalemating: Loss?

What if baring ends in stalemating?