Some time ago, I got myself a nice bamboo xiangqi board, to serve as a playing surface for a number of xiangqi sets I had bought.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Bamboo xiangqi set
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Synochess
In the vast majority of chess variants, the two (or more) sides have identical sets of pieces at the start. But not all of them do .... In real war, armies facing each other are not necessarily identical, and this has been reflected in some chess variants. One of these, Spartan chess, I already have in the collection.
Another chess variant with unequal armies is Synochess. In this variant, one side, called the 'Kingdom', has a normal western set of pieces. The other side, the 'Dynasty', has a set of pieces coming from xiangqi and janggi (Chinese and Korean chess, respectively).
In the collection, I've got board and pieces to easily put together a Synochess set.
For the board, I picked my 'mahjong' board, as that one combines western and Chinese influences.
A Synochess set with both western and Chinese traits!
Friday, August 22, 2025
'Mahjong' set
Saw this xiangqi set on eBay (yes, I have a saved search on those, with email notifications ...). Just the one picture of the closed box, but it looked really unusual, and it didn't cost a lot, so I took the punt.
Monday, August 11, 2025
Shong Chee set
I stumbled across this 'Shong Chee' set on Etsy. As far as I can make out, it was marketed in the 1980s by a company in Taiwan.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Large vintage wooden xiangqi set
To be honest, I got this vintage xiangqi set off eBay for two reasons: I really liked the box it came in. And it was cheap. The listing didn't show much else, so it was a bit of a gamble, but you have to admit, it's a nice box, right?
Friday, July 11, 2025
Eurasian chess set
Eurasian chess is a hybrid between Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Western (FIDE) chess. The pieces, their movement, movement restrictions, and the layout of the board are really sort of halfway between its two 'parents', and it also has a piece (the vao) which isn't part of either, but is inspired by both.