XQ game demo

Black to move : 

1.  ...    C7+3+  In the actual game, Red resigns after this.

 2.  A4+5  P6+1+

 3.  K5=4 ( forced. )  R8+1  Preparing for a cannon shift + discovered check which nets the chariot on his home side.

 4.  R6=5+ (xA )  K5=4

 5.  R5+1+  K4+1

 6.  P7+1  Perpetual check is not a draw in xiangqi. Red stops chariot checks here and threatens a mate in one with the pawn.

 … C7-6

 7.  E5-3  R8=7+

 8.  K4+1  C7=6 checkmate with doubled cannons. 

Hi man

Do you mind if I ask you a question please, I have been wanting to ask for quite some time.

I have seen a lot on the internet over the years about all types of chess, I consider chess to be a family of games that includes XQ and many others.

I have seen some obscure comments about the number of people that play XQ, but nothing official or reliable.

Would you have any kind of very rough idea?

I would like to include people of all ages that may have learned or played very little, but at least they know some but not all of the rules.

Thank you

Warlord

[Edit]

From your profile.

"A good game unshared is a minor crime against humanity."

The following website provides a rough idea of the number of people playing xiangqi in formal tournaments in different parts of the world.

http://www.01xq.com/xqplayer/xqplist.asp

The links include countries, provinces of China and different federations .A word of caution here: Due to various reasons, a lot of very competitive players may be unrated. 

@ebillgo

Thank you man.

Wow, lots of federations, I did not expect that.

Almost 20,000 players in the list, the top player has 800 games and almost 4 million game views.

So, it is a game that is studied very seriously. I understand what you are saying about the word of caution.

FIDE likes throwing around the 600 million chess players number.

I consider that number to be for all types of chess combined, not just western chess.

I also consider that number to be for anybody that has played even just a tiny bit, they may not even know most of the rules.

Working on that number, which I think is realistic, that would be 10% of the population on this planet. (I once saw an "official" number: 8.90%, god knows where.)

So that would make XQ very very roughly about 100 million or more (maybe lots more).

I watched quite a lot of high rated XQ games on the playOK website over the years.

Thanks a lot man

All the best

Warlord