Kevin Pacey wrote on Sat, Dec 1, 2018 01:09 AM UTC:
In one game of Chinese Chess I recently finished, afterwards I thought I might have defended better if a certain 3-fold repetition of position was allowed by the rules (and thus considered a draw), if my opponent didn't avoid it, in one particular sequence of moves I'd thought of. Srictly speaking there was no chasing (or checking) involved, but nor was the repetition voluntary on the part of the defender (me) if I was to avoid losing quickly.
The sequence I wrote of can be descibed as: 1) I move a minister (elephant) away from my palace's central line, and thus the opponent's cannon (in his own camp, on the central line) is no longer attacking any points in my palace. To fight this defence, 2) he puts a minister of his own on the central line in front of his cannon, each piece in his own palace, with the result that his cannon is attacking all the points on the central line in front of his own minister, including all those in my palace. To defend against this, 3) I would move my minister back to where it was, on my palace's central line, at which point his cannon no longer attacks the points on the central line behind my minister (in my palace) since my minister and his both occupy the middle line, in front of his cannon. To fight this defence, 4) he moves his minister away from in front of his cannon, and once again his cannon attacks the points behind my minister on the central line (in my palace). At this point a repetition may have already occured once, depending where his minister went to, but if things keep proceeding in this fashion then a 3-fold repetition would eventually occur.
It's my guess, based on what you've written H.G., that this sort of sequence would be (by Asian rules) ruled a draw, though once again the rules used for the Game Courier preset I was using state simply that 'repetition is to be avoided'.
In one game of Chinese Chess I recently finished, afterwards I thought I might have defended better if a certain 3-fold repetition of position was allowed by the rules (and thus considered a draw), if my opponent didn't avoid it, in one particular sequence of moves I'd thought of. Srictly speaking there was no chasing (or checking) involved, but nor was the repetition voluntary on the part of the defender (me) if I was to avoid losing quickly.
The sequence I wrote of can be descibed as: 1) I move a minister (elephant) away from my palace's central line, and thus the opponent's cannon (in his own camp, on the central line) is no longer attacking any points in my palace. To fight this defence, 2) he puts a minister of his own on the central line in front of his cannon, each piece in his own palace, with the result that his cannon is attacking all the points on the central line in front of his own minister, including all those in my palace. To defend against this, 3) I would move my minister back to where it was, on my palace's central line, at which point his cannon no longer attacks the points on the central line behind my minister (in my palace) since my minister and his both occupy the middle line, in front of his cannon. To fight this defence, 4) he moves his minister away from in front of his cannon, and once again his cannon attacks the points behind my minister on the central line (in my palace). At this point a repetition may have already occured once, depending where his minister went to, but if things keep proceeding in this fashion then a 3-fold repetition would eventually occur.
It's my guess, based on what you've written H.G., that this sort of sequence would be (by Asian rules) ruled a draw, though once again the rules used for the Game Courier preset I was using state simply that 'repetition is to be avoided'.