How to Play Janggi
Janggi is Korea's traditional chess game, and while it looks familiar at first glance, beginners quickly run into questions like why a cannon can't move or how an elephant actually travels. This guide follows the Korea Janggi Association movement rules and walks through the board, every piece, the palace, the cannon's special conditions, setup choices and what to prioritize in the opening, so you can play your first game without rule mistakes.
Cho's cannon has a Han pawn in front of it and a Han chariot beyond that pawn. A cannon cannot land on the piece it jumps. It lands on an empty point past that piece, or captures the piece there. Each difficulty played this position 30 times.
Start
On one file: Cho cannon, Han pawn, Han chariot. The pawn is the single screen. The chariot is the next piece, so it can be captured. Another piece stands between the generals, so they do not face each other.
Line 1 / 4
The left board is where the engine landed. The right board is the square the rules forbid. Cannon practice starts by treating the screen and the landing square as different points.
All three, 30/30
It jumped exactly one piece, the pawn, and captured the chariot. A cannon cannot jump another cannon, and it cannot capture a cannon.
Illegal
That point is the screen. It is not in the cannon's move list, so Playfulo does not highlight it as a destination.
Cho to move, 30 calls each. All three difficulties agreed, so the gap is search depth, not this capture.
11 Oct 2026: Playfulo's janggi AI, 30 calls per difficulty. All three took the chariot with the cannon. Easy seeing only about half of one-move mates is the rate in the engine.
The janggi board has 9 vertical and 10 horizontal lines, and pieces sit on the intersections rather than inside squares. Each side has a palace in the middle of its back area: a 3×3 zone marked with an X of diagonal lines. One side is Cho (usually green or blue) and the other is Han (red), and Cho always moves first.
Each player has 16 pieces: one general, two guards (also called advisors), two chariots, two cannons, two horses, two elephants and five soldiers. Chariots stand on the corners of the back line, horses and elephants next to them, and guards on the lower corners of the palace. Unlike a chess king, the general starts in the center of the palace, one line up from the back. Cannons sit on the third line just inside the chariots, and five soldiers stand on the fourth line with a gap between each.
The goal is to put the enemy general in check with no escape, which Korean players call oetongsu, the janggi equivalent of checkmate. The general is never actually captured; the game ends when it cannot get out of check.
The first job for any beginner is learning seven movement patterns. The biggest differences from chess are that horses and elephants can be blocked on their way, and cannons must always jump over exactly one piece.
The diagonal lines in the palace are real paths, not decoration. Generals and guards step along them, chariots can travel from one palace corner to the opposite corner in one move, and a soldier that reaches the enemy palace can use them to advance diagonally. That's why a single soldier near the enemy palace can be surprisingly dangerous.
The cannon is where most beginners slip up. Whether moving or capturing, it must jump over exactly one piece, called the screen, and the screen can belong to either side. The screen cannot be a cannon, and a cannon can never capture an enemy cannon. At the start of the game there are usually no screens in front of the cannons, so they often can't move at all until other pieces create one.
Inside a palace a cannon can also use the diagonals, but only by jumping over a non-cannon piece standing on the center point. The flip side is useful for defense: when an enemy cannon aims at your general, removing the screen or adding a second piece between them stops the check.
Before the game, each player decides where their horses and elephants stand on each wing. This choice shapes how your pieces develop and how solid your palace defense feels.
The inner-elephant setup, called wonangma in Korean, places pieces as chariot, horse, elephant, guard on both sides, with the elephants next to the palace. It's symmetrical, easy to understand and the most common default. The outer-elephant setup, yangguima, uses chariot, elephant, horse, guard on both sides, so the horses sit near the palace and join the center quickly while the elephants come out from the edge.
The left- and right-elephant setups, called guima, put the elephant on the outside on only one wing. This asymmetry suits players who want one flank solid and the other aimed at attack, but it rewards knowing what each side is meant to do. A good plan is to learn the paths with the inner-elephant setup first and then experiment with the others.
In the opening, rushing a chariot forward is rarely the best idea. It's more important to open paths for your pieces and create screens for your cannons. The order below isn't a fixed book line, just a set of priorities that keeps beginners from collapsing early.
Even when you know the rules, a few mistakes show up again and again. Missing a blocked horse or forgetting about a cannon's screen can cost a major piece in a single move.
Oetongsu, or checkmate, happens when a general in check cannot move to safety, capture the checking piece or block it. Because the general can never leave the palace, the basic idea is to cover its escape points one by one with chariots, horses and cannons. Two chariots squeezing the palace lines, or a cannon and chariot working together on the same line, are classic mating patterns.
Bikjang is the situation where the two generals face each other on the same file with nothing in between. On Playfulo, if bikjang can't be resolved the game is drawn, so a player who is losing may aim for it on purpose. When you're winning, get into the habit of keeping a piece between the generals.
Janggi also has a pass, known as hansu swim. On Playfulo it happens automatically when a player isn't in check but has no legal move. Two passes in a row, or the same position appearing three times, ends the game in a draw.
On Playfulo you can play janggi against an AI in your browser with no sign-up, and choose inner, outer, left or right elephant setups before each game. Start on easy and follow the opening priorities above, checking every move for blocked horses and cannon screens. When you tap a piece, its legal intersections are highlighted, which makes learning the movement rules much easier.
To play with a friend, create a room and share the invite link. After joining, each player picks their own setup and presses ready, and each move has a 60-second limit.
The cannon moves horizontally or vertically but must jump over exactly one piece, of either color, both to move and to capture. It can never jump over another cannon and can never capture a cannon. Inside a palace it can also move diagonally if a non-cannon piece sits on the center point to jump over.
The inner-elephant setup, called wonangma, is the best starting point. Both sides are arranged chariot, horse, elephant, guard, so the position is symmetrical and easy to understand, and it's the most widely used default. Once you're comfortable, try the outer-elephant setup or the one-sided left and right setups.
Bikjang is when the two generals face each other on the same file with no pieces between them. If it isn't resolved, the game ends in a draw, which is why a player who is behind sometimes aims for it deliberately. The player who is ahead should keep a piece between the generals to prevent it.
Cho moves first. Playfulo follows the Korea Janggi Association rules, so Cho is always the first player; in friend matches the room host plays Cho and the winner plays Cho in the next game.