Double Horse Checkmate in Xiangqi: The 双马饮泉 Pattern

Horses at the spring

The name translates as two horses drinking at the spring. It is poetic rather than technical, and the useful picture is simply two Horses standing close together beside the palace. Players also call it 打滚马, the rolling horses, which describes how the attack actually moves.

Chinese sources describe the set-up consistently. One Horse goes to the point on the defender's second rank directly in front of the defender's Horse starting point. From there it watches the side of the palace, and some writers call it 金钩马, the golden hook horse. The second Horse then jumps into the trough point right next to it, on the inside, and checks.

Some English write-ups show the finish with the two Horses on opposite sides of the palace. That is not a different pattern. As the example below shows, the rolling Horse can end up on either side, depending on where the General runs.

The starting position

Set up the board like this. Black's General is on its home point. One Black Advisor is in the palace centre and the other is on the back corner on Red's left. A Black Elephant stands on the middle of the palace's front edge, two points in front of the General. On Red's side, one Horse, the hook, stands on Black's second rank directly in front of the starting point of Black's right-hand Horse. The second Red Horse is on Black's soldier row on the right rib file, the file that runs along the right edge of the palace. The Red General is on its home point, and it is Red to move.

Notice one thing before moving. The hook Horse already covers the right back corner of the palace and the right front corner, but only while the trough point beside it is empty, because that point is its leg for both jumps.

Move by move

First, the second Horse jumps into the trough on the right, beside the hook. That is check from the side. It also blocks the hook Horse's leg, and that is exactly why Black has a move at all: the General steps sideways into the right back corner, its only legal reply.

That first check is not meant to mate. Its real job is to pull the General onto the back corner, a point the hook Horse will reach as soon as its leg is free again.

Second, the trough Horse captures the Elephant on the palace's front edge. Leaving the trough uncovers the hook Horse, which now checks the General in the corner. Capturing the Horse that just moved would not help against a discovered check, and no Black piece can reach the hook Horse's leg. Black has two legal replies: the General goes up to the middle of the palace's right edge, or back to its home point.

If the General goes up, the rolling Horse jumps from the palace's front edge to Black's soldier row, on the file just outside the palace on the right, and checks again. The hook Horse covers both the back corner and the front corner on that side, and the palace centre is full of Black's own Advisor. Checkmate.

If the General goes home, the rolling Horse jumps to the trough on the other side of the palace, in front of the starting point of Black's left-hand Elephant, and checks from there. The hook still covers the right back corner, the Advisors fill the palace centre and the left back corner, and again Black has no move. This second finish is the one some sources draw, with a Horse on each side of the palace.

We ran every branch of this sequence through XiangqiPlay's rules engine: it is a forced mate in three whatever Black does, and every Red move along the way is check.

The trap inside the pattern

One natural move throws it all away. After the General returns home, it is tempting to send the rolling Horse back into the same trough beside the hook, since that is where the attack began. It is check, but it blocks the hook Horse's leg again, and the General walks straight back into the right corner.

That trap explains the whole pattern. The hook Horse's leg point is the trough itself. Every time the rolling Horse sits there, the hook is switched off; every time it leaves, the hook is switched on. Good double horse play is about choosing when to flip that switch.

Getting two Horses that far

Two Horses are slow, so the pattern tends to appear when the attacker already has the initiative, or when most of the heavy pieces have been traded. Look for it when the defender has one Advisor in the palace centre and the other on the back corner away from your Horses, because that formation fills the General's own escape points. An Elephant on the palace's front edge is a bonus, since it gives the rolling Horse something to capture with check.

Bring the hook Horse in first. Once it stands in front of the defender's Horse starting point, Advisors and Elephants cannot touch it, and it quietly controls that side of the palace. Then route the second Horse to Black's soldier row near the rib file, where it is one leap from the trough.

The whole pattern mirrors to the other wing, with the hook in front of the starting point of the defender's left-hand Horse and the Advisors reversed.

Keep checking once you start. In the line above every Red move is check, and in a real game that matters: while the checks continue, the defender never gets a free move to hit back at your own General.

How the defender breaks it

The defence has to come early, before the checks begin. The hook Horse is the key piece, and only a Chariot, Horse or Cannon can attack it on that point, so keep one of them nearby. Trading off either Horse usually ends the idea.

It also helps to keep a flight point open. In the example, Black's own Advisors fill the palace centre and the left back corner, and that is what makes the mate possible. When two enemy Horses gather on one wing, rearranging the Advisors so the General has room to step away from that wing can be enough.

Finally, watch the trough point itself. If a defending piece controls it, the rolling Horse cannot start the sequence, because the first check would simply lose the Horse.

Practise the roll

Set up the starting position, play both lines until the discovered check feels natural, then play the trap line so you see why it fails. For more horse mates, XiangqiPlay's puzzle library holds 5,000 engine-proven mate puzzles, free to solve, and a free account lets you take the rolling horses into real games against the computer at any of its eight levels (Easy to God).