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Banqi (半棋), also known as Dark Chess (暗棋) or Blind Chess (盲棋), a Chinese board game.

Banqi

Banqi (Chinese: 半棋; pinyin: bànqí) or Half Chess, also known as Dark Chess (暗棋) or Blind Chess (盲棋), is a two-player Chinese board game played on a 4x8 grid, or half of the xiangqi (Chinese Chess) board. Most games last between ten and twenty minutes, but advanced games can go on for an hour or more. Banqi is a social game, usually played for fun rather than serious competition.

Rules can be find in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqi

Using Taiwanese version Rule.

Red has the 1st move.

The ranking goes as follows: general, advisor, elephant, chariot, horse, soldier.

This ranking is based on the initial board positions of the corresponding pieces in xiangqi, though the horse and chariot are inexplicably swapped.

Only pieces of equal or lower rank may be captured, with one exception. The one exception concerns generals and soldiers: the general cannot capture soldiers, and soldiers can capture the general.

Except for the cannon, pieces capture with the same motion as for movement: one square up, down, left, or right.

The cannon is not included in the ranking because it is exceptional: it captures in an unusual way, it can capture a piece of any rank, and yet is vulnerable to capture by any piece except the soldier.

A cannon captures as in xiangqi: it moves any distance along a single row or column of the board, jumping over exactly one intermediate piece (called a screen). Any other squares between the cannon and its target must be empty. The color of the screening piece does not matter; it may be friend or foe, or even face down. While a cannon may capture any piece, it must jump a screen to do so. Since a cannon must jump to capture, it cannot capture a piece in an adjacent square.