360 Chess

Are you a strategic thinker who likes to plan a few steps ahead in life? Alistair Hill, a professional poker player talks with ShaoLan about one of his hobbies, which is playing chess! ShaoLan teaches the general Chinese word for chess-style games and then shows Alistair how to differentiate between the western chess game and other Chinese chess or chequers games. Their conversation moves on to discuss how chess can influence the way that people think and behave in ordinary life. Do you think playing chess can help you to make more strategic decisions in life?

The Chinese word for chess-style games is 棋. If you want to describe western chess then you add two words at the beginning 西洋. The first character 西 means “west” and the second character 洋 means “ocean,” so the “chess from over the western ocean” is what we simply call “chess” 西洋棋 in the west!