How to improve
Every position, move and legality claim on this page is verified programmatically against our open rules engine, which implements the WXF laws and is tested against the official 110-diagram repetition casebook.
Direct answer
Study in this order: basic checkmates, then tactics, then endgames, then openings. Review your own losses and find the move where the game turned. Opening study is the least useful thing a beginner can do and the thing most beginners do first.
The order that works
- Basic checkmates. You cannot win a won game without them, and they take an afternoon. Start with mating a bare general with a chariot.
- Tactics. Forks, pins and discovered attacks decide almost every game below expert level. This is where the largest gain per hour is.
- Endgames. Learn what beats what. Knowing that a chariot draws against a full defence but beats a broken one changes every trade you make.
- Openings. Last, and shallow. Four or five moves and the plan behind them.
Most players do this list backwards, spend months on opening theory, and lose the same games to the same tactics.
Reviewing your own games
This is the part that actually moves your rating, and it is uncomfortable, which is why it gets skipped. Take a game you lost and find the move where the position turned. Not the blunder at the end, the move before things became difficult.
Then answer one question about it: what did I not look at. Almost always the answer is a piece you had stopped paying attention to, or a threat you assumed was slow.
An engine helps here, but use it second. Form your own opinion first, then check it. An engine that tells you the answer before you have thought teaches nothing.
How much to play
Enough to have material to review and not so much that you never review it. A reasonable ratio is one game reviewed for every two or three played. Long games teach more than fast ones, because you can only learn from decisions you actually made.
Puzzles are the exception to the review rule. Volume works there, because the point is pattern recognition and the feedback is immediate.
Common mistakes
Studying openings first
Openings are the last thing to study and the first thing most people start with. Tactics and basic mates decide far more games.
Only playing fast games
Fast games give you volume without decisions worth reviewing. Play some slow ones so there is something to learn from.
Checking the engine before thinking
Form your own view first, then compare. The gap between your answer and the engine's is where the learning is.
Related questions
How long does it take to get good at xiangqi?
Reaching a solid club standard usually takes months rather than years if the work is aimed at tactics and endgames. Progress stalls most often because the study time goes into opening theory instead.
Should I study openings or tactics first?
Tactics, without much doubt. Tactics decide almost every game below expert level, while opening knowledge only matters once both players survive the middlegame. See tactical patterns.
Do I need a coach to improve at xiangqi?
No, though it speeds things up. Reviewing your own losses honestly gets most of the benefit, and playing stronger opponents supplies the material.
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