Capturing with a checkmate threat

Capturing with a checkmate threat is to threaten to deliver a checkmate in the next round, and the opponent has no choice but to give up one of his pieces to save the general. To use this tactic well, we must familiarize ourselves with different checkmate patterns.

Let us take a look at the following examples.

In this example,  Red can capture by moving its F2 chariot to F7. This move has 2 purposes: threatening checkmate with iron bolt on the next move(F7 to J7), and attacking the black horse on D7.

To avoid a checkmate, black can only move his general to J6, and then red can easily capture black’s horse.

In this case,Red can move its cannon from A4 to A3, threatening to perform a smothering mate next round by Cannon A3 to J3.

 Black can only sacrifice its H1 horse by moving it to I3. And red can capture the horse.

In this Xiangqi tutorial, we talked about capturing with a checkmate threat. If we are familiar with different checkmate patterns, then we can utilize this skill to take the upperhand over our opponent during the game.

Below is an exercise about capturing with a checkmate threat Try out the puzzle to see whether you can apply what you learn in this tutorial!

Practice makes perfect