Smothered cannon checkmate

The smothered cannon checkmate is one of the basic checkmate patterns in xiangqi. The idea behind this checkmate is to use the cannon to deliver a checkmate by exploiting the positional weakness created by the advisors of our opponent.

Before we dive into the checkmate pattern itself, let us first take a look at the two different formations for the advisors. In the diagram below, the red advisors have formed a pattern called the castle advisors. It is commonly used to defend against the opponent’s chariots by turning one side into a fortress, in this case, the left side.

For the black side, the advisors have formed a so-called Palcorner and Centroid advisors. This pattern is useful when we want to defend against the opponent’s attack from the elbow horse or the palcorner horse.

The advisors are important as they can protect the general. However, it is a common misconception that it is always safe to hide the general inside the advisors. The advisors sometimes will cause troubles for the general, as they would block some of the escape routes. The best piece to attack a general hiding inside the advisors would be the cannon, with the smothered cannon checkmate.

Let’s us look at the example below. Both the red and the black general are protected by the advisors. For the black general, right now the only escape route for the general is J6. Red can perform a smothered cannon checkmate by moving the G3 cannon to G6. The black general failed to escape from the attack, red wins.

On the other hand, the red general is protected by the castle advisors. Its only escape route is A6. If it is black to move, black can move his E3 cannon to A3 to perform a smothered cannon checkmate. Black wins.

In this Xiangqi tutorial, we talked about the smothered cannon checkmate. It is crucial to understand the potential weakness created by the advisors, and how we can exploit it with the cannon.

Below is an exercise about the smothered cannon checkmate. Try out the puzzle to see whether you can apply what you learn in this tutorial!

Practice makes perfect