How to Play Banqi

Banqi is xiangqi's quick cousin, played with the same pieces on half the board, all of them face down to start.

The rules

1. The 32 pieces are shuffled and laid face down on a 4×8 board. Players alternate turns.
2. On your turn do one of three things: flip a face-down piece; move one of your face-up pieces one square orthogonally to an empty square; or capture an adjacent face-up enemy piece by moving onto it.
3. The first flip decides the colours: whoever flips first owns that colour, and the opponent gets the other.
4. Rank, high to low: general, advisor, elephant, chariot, horse, cannon, soldier. A piece may capture an enemy of equal or lower rank. The soldier captures the general, and the general cannot capture a soldier.
5. The cannon does not capture adjacent pieces. It captures by jumping over exactly one piece (of either colour, face up or down) to the first piece beyond it in a straight line, which must be a face-up enemy.
6. You lose when you have no pieces left or no legal move. Forty consecutive turns without a flip or capture is a draw.

Playing on kawu

Tap a face-down piece to flip it. Tap one of your face-up pieces, then a dashed square, to move or capture. Red pieces carry 帥 仕 相 俥 傌 炮 兵, black pieces 將 士 象 車 馬 砲 卒. There is no undo, because flips reveal hidden information. Hint shows the hard computer's move. Choose who flips first in the options, or play two players on one device.

Next: Banqi strategy.

Last updated 2026-10-21