435152: I don´t agree with you. In chess we also play for initiative as other players can tell you.

naughtypawn:
thank you for telling me that something as other players already knew.
you play chess ?

435152: Of course I play chess. It is my favourite game and I play it for years. I play in a club, in tournaments in team leagues,... so I tell you that players (I, we, others) play for the iniciative. It is quite simple. We, even, leave pawns to get the iniciative. With "in chess, you play for the pawn" you are showing a poor understanding of chess. And yes, I can talk about other players because I know lots of them.

naughtypawn:
did i say in chess you do not play for the initiative??
please read my post again
i just said "in chess, you may be ok to do that"
how much you understand the different between chinese chess and chess? what's your online rating in both? how many years you have played chess? i do not ask you about your chinese chess experience.

435152: "how much you understand the different between chinese chess and chess? what's your online rating in both? how many years you have played chess?

Too many questions, aren´t they?. What are you getting at? Are you trying to "guess" my skill in chess by asking me those questions. Of course I could answer you, but that´s none of your business. The skill is shown by playing in an online chess server like ICC or FICS, not by asking impertinent questions. I gave you my opinion and you answered with "thank you for telling me that something as other players already knew.
you play chess ?", which is a stupid statement, with no argument at all. Let´s finish this. You have an opinion and I have mine, that´s all.

naughtypawn:
> Of course, I play chess. It is my favourite game and I play it for years. I play in a club, in tournaments in team leagues...
why you told me about this, it is not my businese, i am not interested to know. i do not care how many years you played chess, and when you played chess.
i did not argue with you about initiative in chess, because everybody knows about it.

435152: no I have definitely not played a chinese gm before, and even if I learnt this game in asia, i have not meet any profi yet.

435152: In chess you can play 1.e4,e5 2.Qh5 (as some strong Gm) and if your opponent does not take advantage of this then you can get a playable position beacuse your structure of pawns is good and the material is equal. As Philidor said, pawns are very important in chess. The initiative is volatile, if you don´t get a mate or a material advantage then when the initiative dissapears the static elements of the position (material and structure of the pawns) say who has some kind of advantage. Of course, this doesn´t mean the initiative is not important in chess.
In XiangQi this is different, a tempo has more importance than in chess and therefore the move and properties of the pawns are rather differents. But i am not an expert about XianQi though i like it.

Matarilevich:
you just explained clearly and more in detail, it is exactly what i meant. everybody knows you have to kept up with your opponent for initiative.ha
in chinese chess, the initiative is more important, especially when you play with black which is always one move behind from the beginning.

chinese chess is more an open game than the chess, because of the set up, and the pawn structure are different. the pawns are the queen candidates, so you must pay attention to them. in chinese chess, no promotion for the pawn.

Matarilevich:
> you can play 1.e4,e5 2.Qh5
well, of course, because you have white, you can lose the advantage of being white, I guess if you are black, it is more difficult to play 1. Cf3 h6 2. Cc3 a6, because the development is also very important in chess.

About giving a pawn or two to gain tempos :
In some situation, you can give a pawn to gain initiative, like in kings gambit.

In chinese chess, a pawn has less value than in real chess, and there is no "pawn structure", as in chess. What's more, a pawn has very little value in the opening.

For most of us occidental chess players, we tend to play xiangqi in the same way we would play chess, which is probably a handicap sometimes. Asian players, which are far superiors, mostly do not care of losing pawns or elefants or even cannon, because they see the development as a major challenge and do not concentrate too much on material.

Maybe we are just like "bunnies" for many chinese players, because we did not learn the game as kids and no one did teach us the strategy correctly.

Maybe when we win against chinese, we have to win tactically, by calculating further, even we suffer domination on the board.

I am not convinced I would lose against a chinese GM with 2 knights handicap. Nor would I lose against Kasparov with 2 knights handicap. I do not know...

mangue:
>I am not convinced I would lose against a chinese GM with 2 knights handicap. Nor would I lose against Kasparov with 2 knights handicap I do not know...
well, as i said before, in chinese chess 2 knights handicap is played between two players one is much stronger than the other, it is not easy for a beginner to win 2 knights handicap against a GM, it may take a long time to do it, or you never could do it if you can not improve yourself, i have seen many people playing chinese chess for life they could not do it. they are still a layman in chinese chess.
i do not know if you have played this kind of game against a chinese GM before, most likely, you did not, because you learned to play the chinese chess aganist non-chinese player, not a chinese GM, please forgive me if i quess wrong.
It is impossible in chess to play 2 knights handicap, because the development is much slower than the chinese chess, no matter who.

mangue:
i would like to refer to my game vs FromHell to express my view, that game is still in progress.

your post to Matarilevich on 13 October 2006, 10:27:55
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>about giving a pawn or two to gain tempos:
In some situation, you can give a pawn to gain initiative, like in kings gambit.

435152 vs FromHell
14. pg5 pxg5 15. Nge4 Nxe4 16. Nxe4 Pf5

.......
.......
>For most of us occidental chess players, we tend to play xiangqi in the same way we would play chess, which is probobaly a handicap sometimes. Asian players, which are far superiors, mostly do not care of losing pawns or elephants or even cannon, because they see the development as a major challenge and do not concentrate too much on material.

17.Nf6 Na9 18.Cb9 Ch9 19.Nh7! Cxb9 20.Rb8 Kd10

the position of that game arrived at move 20 now,i will comment this game later.

435152: even if I cannot tell who will win in your position with fromhell Chinese Chess (435152 vs. FromHell) , the schema with black pieces totally inactive and worthless also exists in occidental chess, does not it?