About Play Xiangqi
Play Xiangqi is for one game with someone you know. Open the site, send the link, play. Neither of you signs up.
Every move is checked against the rules on the server before the other board sees it, and the server runs the clocks. The same rules code runs in your browser, so the board you see and the board the server keeps cannot drift apart.
Judgements follow the 2018 World Xiangqi Rules. Two of them differ from chess and surprise people: a side with no legal move loses, and repeating a check three times loses.
One thing the rule book leaves to a referee, we leave alone: whether the remaining pieces can still force a win. We never declare that draw automatically.
Picture pieces
The picture pieces are the “euro” set by Jasmin Scharrer (artwork) and Sebastian Pipping, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). We changed only the colours to match this board.
Opening a board
The first person to open your link takes the empty side and the game starts. Anyone who opens it after that watches.
If your connection drops, open the same link again — the server sends the whole game back, so nothing is lost.
What this site does not do
There is no rating, no matchmaking with strangers and no chat. You play the person you sent the link to.
The computer opponent is our own small engine, not a famous one. Its six levels are our guesses, not ratings.
Boards are temporary: one that nobody joins is deleted after a day, and a finished or idle game after a week.