random post

so i was going to post another chess thing up, but it seems noone else has quite the same enthusiasm for it so i'm gonna move on to something completely different.

Chinese chess.
Also known as xiangqi, it is in my opinion, a decent variation of regular chess. I have played it, and the novelty of the pieces was quite interesting - but all in all my first impressions of it was that it lacks a real amount of depth in comparison to the western kind. Logic may state that elephants can't cross rivers and kings cannot leave their palaces, but all these restrictions just felt as though i was very limited in the control of my pieces. Cardinals seem like a waste of a piece, and i reckon if they could move outside the palace they would be much better suited. The inability of knights to jump over pieces was a factor i kept overlooking, and many times this frustrated me - again, even though the board still has 64 squares, it felt as though i was playing on a 4x4 board. Of course, this may be due to my severe n00bness, but it doesn't change the fact space IS more cramped in chinese chess.
On the plus side though, the cannons were awesome fun to play with. For those who don't know what it is, it has the moves of a castle in regular chess and can jump over a piece like a regular knight. It's interesting to note that if you had to remove one piece from the game, removing the cannon would result in a game that, mathematically, loses more % of depth from the game than any other piece. And although it makes no sense, i really liked how pawns can move left and right after they cross the 'river' - though this awesomeness is diminished when you come to realise it comes to nothing once it reaches the end of the board.