What is 雙車錯 (the two chariot mate)?

These answers restate the rules implemented by our open-source engine, which follows the WXF laws for movement, checkmate and both repetition rulings: a side that forces a repetition by perpetual check or perpetual chase loses rather than drawing. The chase half has not been validated against the official casebook. Where an answer refers to a specific position, that position lives on the linked reference page, where the build verifies it before publishing.

Direct answer

雙車錯 is two chariots mating with no other help at all. One chariot checks along the general's rank while the other controls the rank it would retreat to. Because a chariot sweeps a whole line in one move, two of them cover six of the palace's nine points — and the general only has three ranks.

The arithmetic

The general is locked in nine points. One chariot controls a whole rank of the palace, which is three of those nine. Two chariots on adjacent ranks control six, and the general cannot be on the remaining three and safe at the same time. That is the entire mate.

What follows for both sides

If your opponent has two chariots and your general is exposed, trading one is almost always right, even at the cost of a soldier — a single chariot is far easier to hold, and against a full defence of advisors and elephants the manuals call it a draw. If you have two, keeping both is correspondingly valuable.

Related questions

Can one chariot mate alone?

Against a bare general yes, with your own general's help. Against a general with cover, no.

Is it like a back-rank mate?

Same idea — control the lines the king cannot leave. The palace makes the net smaller and the mate faster.

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