I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

For example, familiarity with chess can help with xiangqi,
(and vice versa) at least at the novice levels.

I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

A couple of points:

1. The mutations are unlikely always to be arbitrary. In shogi it is believed the emphasis on short moves reflected the nature of the Japanese terrain (lack of flat plains) and thus the nature of Japanese warfare. Similarly, the idea of prisoner exchange and/or swapping sides was a major element in Japanese campaigns, and is believed to be reflected in the idea of drops.

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants. Like chess itself they are variants of some earlier game, presumably chaturanga.

The strongest western shogi player is probably still Larry Kaufmann, who is now a chess Grandmaster. He devoted a lot of time to shogi, in particular to memorising lots of opening lines, in chess fashion. But he never got close to pro level and always needed a significant handicap. One problem that chess players have with shogi is that the idea of the centre four squares being the main focus does not apply in shogi. There it is the whole of the centre rank. The large range and greater complexity of castle formations also create problems, as move order and aji become major considerations. Timing is also rather different in shogi compared to chess, and many strategic elements such as this are actually closer to go than to chess.

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants.

Right; I didn't mean "chess" in the sense of "Western chess", but in the sense of 棋, for which there is no single equivalent English word, is there ?

Chaturanga

Funny, I have always named shogi, xiangqi as chess variants, but not thinking about them as some bastardised chess, but as variations from the earliest tree of chaturanga or before already, i.e. totally different from, say, Monster Chess or Chess960.

This is an excerpt from the famous Hikaru No Go

Do you have to learn all those Japanese signs or is there an English way to play? I would be very interested in learning Shogi, however, I'm worried it will be too similar to western chess and therefore throw off my game because of confusion. One player said that because the pawns move differently, for instance, its hard to go between games and keep them strait.

Do you have to learn all those Japanese signs or is there an English way to play?