Learn janggi

This assumes you have read the rules once. The quickest way in is to set up a board, play the twelve steps below, and watch what each one does.

Updated 5 September 2026

A first game, step by step

Nothing is captured below, and that is normal. Moves use the numbering explained further down: each side counts files from its own right and ranks from its own back rank, so every move is written from the point of view of the player who made it.

A quiet, symmetrical opening for both sides

Han: elephants insideHan declares first and takes the base layout: horse outside next to the chariot, elephant inside next to the guard, on both wings. It is the layout with the fewest surprises.
Cho: elephants insideCho has seen Han’s choice and matches it. Mirroring is not compulsory and often not best, but a symmetrical board is the easiest to read for a first game. Cho now has the move.
H81-73Cho’s left-hand horse steps up to 82 and out one diagonally. It develops the horse and drops a piece onto the third rank — the line the cannon behind it wants to jump.
P54-44Han slides the central soldier one point sideways. It now stands beside its neighbour, where the two defend each other, and the point it left is free for something larger.
C83-53Cho’s cannon jumps the horse on 73 and lands on the front centre point of its own palace — the general’s gate. The general one point behind defends it, and anything coming down the central file has to reckon with it.
E31-54Han’s elephant takes the vacated point: one straight to 32, then two diagonally through 43, all three empty. Its next leaps already reach two of Cho’s soldiers, four ranks away. This is the move that catches xiangqi players out.
P74-75Cho pushes the threatened soldier forward, out of the elephant’s line, and gains ground doing it. Chasing an elephant with a small piece is usually wrong; stepping out of its way is usually right.
H21-33Han brings the second horse out on the other wing. It develops, and it lays the screen the cannon behind it needs.
P34-44Cho’s right-hand soldier steps sideways, out of the elephant’s other line and alongside its neighbour, where the two guard each other.
C23-53Han’s cannon jumps its horse and takes the general’s gate, mirroring Cho. Look at the central file: Cho’s own soldier and Han’s elephant both stand on it. A cannon jumps exactly one piece, never two, so no check is available down that file.
H21-33Cho develops the second horse and lays the screen for the cannon still on its starting point. The digits match Han’s eighth move because each side counts files from its own right, so mirrored moves get mirrored names.
R11-13Han lifts a chariot two points up its file, behind the soldier. No lines are open yet, so the move is modest: it clears the back rank and waits. Both sides are developed and the game proper starts here.

One note from step ten. Cho’s cannon could jump its own soldier and take Han’s elephant — but Han’s soldier on the next point would take the cannon straight back, and a cannon for an elephant is a bad exchange. Being able to capture is not a reason to capture.

Opening principles

The arrangement choice is not about the horses. It is about the elephants. An elephant needs three empty points in a row to leap, and which points it can ever reach depends entirely on where it starts. Work out, for each of the four arrangements, where each of your elephants could land on its first leap. That is what you are choosing between. Because Han declares first, Cho is choosing against a known board.

Whichever arrangement you take, notice which of your own soldiers and cannons stand in your elephants’ way. They will have to move before the elephants can, and that shapes your first three or four moves.

A cannon is worth more than a horse and does nothing at all without a screen, so building screens is the real content of a janggi opening. The commonest screen is one of your own horses, stepped out onto the third rank on the cannon’s line; the next commonest is a soldier. Before committing, ask whether the screen is a piece you will want to move later, because moving it switches the cannon off.

The best early home for a cannon is the front centre point of your own palace, jumped into over a developed horse. The general behind it defends it, and it looks straight down the central file at the enemy general. If that file ever clears to exactly one piece in between, the cannon is giving check. Both sides know this, which is why the central file fills up so quickly.

In defence the palace diagonals are worth more than they look. A guard on a palace corner covers the centre point; a chariot brought back inside your palace covers points it could not otherwise touch; a general on the centre has eight ways out instead of four. Pieces that retreat into the palace get stronger, which is not true of most chess games.

Passing is almost never right in the opening, because you always have a move worth making. It comes into its own in blocked positions, where everything you can find weakens something, and in endings where you want your opponent to commit first. Under the points preset, remember that two passes in a row end the game and hand it to whoever leads on material.

The mistakes everyone makes first

Moving the elephant like a xiangqi elephant. It goes one point straight and then two diagonally, not one and one. It reaches further, it crosses the middle of the board freely, and it can be blocked at either point it passes over. Beginners lose soldiers to elephants they never saw, then lose elephants by leaping onto a point they had not checked.
Forgetting that a cannon cannot move without a screen. A cannon on an empty line is not slow, it is frozen — and your opponent can freeze it by taking the screen away.
Trying to take a cannon with a cannon. Illegal in both directions: no cannon captures a cannon and none jumps one either. An enemy cannon on your cannon’s line is a wall, and a very cheap way to shut a line down.
Walking into bikjang. If the generals face down a clear file when your turn begins and you do not break it, the game is drawn on the spot — a catastrophe when you are winning and a lifeline when you are losing. Check the central files before you move.
Forgetting that the pass exists. Players from other chess games sit hunting for a move they do not want to make. You are allowed to make none, provided you are not in check.
Leaving the soldiers spread out. A soldier defends the points to either side of it. Two soldiers side by side are genuinely hard to take; five on alternate files defend nothing.

Reading and writing moves

The Korea Janggi Association numbers the points rather than lettering them. Files run 1 to 9; ranks run 1 to 9 and then 0, because the tenth rank is written as a single digit. Every point is two digits.

Files: Numbered 1 to 9 from the moving player’s own right hand across to their left. The two sides number them in opposite directions.
Ranks: Numbered from the moving player’s own back rank away from them: 1 for the chariots, 2 for the general, 3 for the cannons, 4 for the soldiers. The far rank is written 0, not 10.
A point: File digit, then rank digit. Your general starts on 52 — file 5, rank 2.
Two names for one point: Each side counts from its own right and its own back rank, so every point has two names. Your 52 is your opponent’s 59; the corner you call 11 is the one they call 90.
A move: This site writes the piece letter, the starting point, a dash and the finishing point: H81-73. The Korean written form puts the piece’s name between the two numbers instead of the dash.
Piece letters: K general, A guard, E elephant, H horse, R chariot, C cannon, P soldier — the letters the engine here uses.
Captures, checks and mate: A capture is written like any other move; the destination says what was taken. This site marks check with a plus sign and mate with a hash.
A pass: Written simply as pass. It is a turn like any other and counts towards the 120 half-move no-progress limit.

Three worked examples from the walkthrough above:

H81-73 — Cho’s horse on file 8, rank 1 steps to file 7, rank 3, through 82. Numbering from the other side, Han would call those two points 20 and 38.
C83-53 — the cannon on file 8, rank 3 travels sideways along that rank to file 5, jumping the horse now standing on 73 and landing on the front centre point of Cho’s palace.
E31-54 — Han’s elephant on file 3, rank 1 leaps to file 5, rank 4, passing over 32 and then 43. Both of those had to be empty; the destination had to be empty or hold a Cho piece.

Janggi words

janggi (장기): The Korean game of chess. Its name uses the characters for general and board game — the same pair as Japanese shogi — not the elephant character of xiangqi.
cho (초, 楚): One of the two sides, usually green or blue. Cho moves first and declares an arrangement second. Named for the state of Chu.
han (한, 漢): The other side, usually red. Han declares an arrangement first and moves second. Named for the house of Han.
gung (궁): The palace: the three-by-three block at each end with both diagonals drawn across it. The same word is used for the general himself.
general: The piece the game is about. One step along a drawn line, never out of the palace, and he starts on the palace’s centre point.
sa (사): Guard. Two per side, moving exactly as the general does and confined to the palace with him.
sang (상): Elephant. One point straight then two diagonally outward, blocked at either point it passes over. Free to cross the board.
ma (마): Horse. One point straight then one diagonally outward, blocked on the straight point.
cha (차): Chariot. Any distance along a rank or file, plus the palace diagonals while inside a palace. The strongest piece.
po (포): Cannon. Moves and captures only by jumping exactly one piece, and never another cannon.
jol / byeong (졸 / 병): Soldier. Five per side. The two armies mark theirs with different characters, 卒 and 兵, which is the quickest way to tell them apart.
bikjang (빅장): The two generals on the same file with nothing between them. Under the rules here, leaving them like that draws the game.
janggun (장군): Check — the word said aloud when the enemy general is attacked.
jangmun (장문): The general’s gate: the middle point on a palace’s front edge, directly ahead of the general at the start. Korean players also use the word for the mating net that closes it.
myeonpo (면포): The face cannon — a cannon posted on your own general’s gate, defended by the general behind it. The commonest defensive formation in the game.
screen: The piece a cannon jumps over. Either colour will do, but never another cannon. Without one the cannon cannot move.
palace diagonal: One of the two lines drawn across a palace. Generals, guards, chariots, cannons and enemy soldiers standing on them may travel along them.
pass: A legal turn in which you change nothing, open to any player not in check. It is why janggi has no stalemate.
arrangement: One of the four ways of filling your own horse and elephant points before play. Han declares first, then Cho, then Cho moves.
point count: The tabled piece values — chariot 13, cannon 7, horse 5, elephant 3, guard 3, soldier 2, plus 1.5 for Cho — used under tournament rules to decide games that would otherwise be drawn.