This was so much fun! Thanks for having me on the channel Tony🌟

guys i think he’s incentivized to play aggressively

IMO, the Chinese "pawns" should be shown as soldiers as a reminder of their different movement.

Some more things that make xiangqi different to chess (and chaturanga):

- Xiangqi elephants cannot jump

- Cannons are, in chess terms, actually only worth 3-3.5 points. They’re worth 4.5 in xiangqi but rooks/chariots are worth 9 and knights are worth 4

- The flying general rule: if the two generals are on the same file with no other pieces between them, one general can launch across the board and capture the other. In practice this means any move producing that board state is illegal in xiangqi

- For the purposes of chess v xiangqi, however, the xiangqi player could perform a flying general check and since the chess king does not have flying general powers it would have to move out of the way

Also elephants don’t jump in Chinese chess

Chinese Chess Blunders vs Modern Chess Blunders 😆

Let's just consider material strengths a lil bit in your setup: The chess side has one queen (9pt maybe), two rooks (10), two knights and two bishops (12). Thats a total of 31 points for the chess side and at first glance it seemed balanced with Xiangqi. But the same rook with EXATCLY THE SAME movements is worth 9 points each as defined in Xiangqi! So if we normalize the scale of points here, then two Xiangqi chariots are worth 10 chess pts (18 * 5/9) and by the same proportion the two Xiangqi cannons would be worth 5 pts TOGETHER (9 * 5/9), the two Xiangqi horses would be 4.4 points together (8 * 5/9), two elephants plus one advisor are only 3.9 pts together (7 * 5/9), making a total of only 23.2 points. That's simply ONE QUEEN behind in material for the Xiangqi side from the starting position, if further counting fewer pawns and a weaker king (general). This intuitively aligns with your 2nd game which ended in a draw even when the chess side blundered a queen for nothing in the start.

The two games are not compatible in playstyle. Xiangqi's movements are way more restricted so the idea is often to outmaneuver and threat your opponent's palace position before they threat yours. And cannons are originally used to establish control over the central FILES (not the squares) but in this 64-grid board (it is asymmetric!) with a lot of diagonal movements it is but impossible.

One game design point is that in chinese chess the elephants are placed on the same "color" squares so that they can defend each other

Fools will resign
Wise players can make a draw
But only true geniuses can win with a ladder mate

if "chinese king" cannot capture diagonally that means normal king probably can win even on 1-on-1

48:30 I think Pietro wins here by taking the firz, since the king can't take back. in fact if I'm understanding the king's movement the firz was hanging a lot towards the end of that game

Ah yes Checkmate brothers - Pietro and Iwant

Its funny watching them both forget their basic chess principles as soon as a different set of pieces is involved.

It is also interesting seeing that neither of them fully understand chinese chess principles.

and he SACRIFICES THE CHARIOT!!!

Cannon is not as good as you said it’s just like 4 points in chess but they are „suspicious“ pieces as you’ve said in the chaturanga video

Day 33:
Bunkerfish: stockfish's elo gets higher the
further your king is from stockfish's king.
Diagonals are counted as two squares, to
discourage castling. If your kings are as
close as possible it would play like 800 elo
starting at around 2000 elo, and if you are
tucked away safely in an opposite corner it
would play like the full 3600 elo stockfish,
everything in between is interpolated at
~230 elo per square.

48:57 it is actually black winning just with the king in the second game I think because after the last move white king has to go e3 to protect the advisor but white does not have any answer after kf4 or kd4 and lose either king or advisor because neither white piece can protect these squares then it is just a chase to hunt down other piece left with black kings overpowered moveset

The chess side was at a massive advantage if blundering a queen for nothing results in a slow, grindy game with equal odds.

in final position, black wins.. it can force take that fake bishop and then can force the white king into a corner and checkmate it

Chess, but it's Multiverse. You play against stockfish, but after each loss you gradually switch your normal pieces with pieces from fairy chess, and you also add new win conditions, like "get your king to the other side of the board" (as in King Race) and "check the opponent king X times" etc