From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 30 may 1990 Subject: Concept Shogi rules -- please check for clarity. Please find below the concept Shogi rules. After having been cleared they will be available from the Shogi filelist and will be sent to all new subscribers of this list. I would like to ask everybody on SHOGI-L to check whether these rules are clear and cover everything. Reply directly to me, please, not to SHOGI-L. Thanks in advance. Pieter Stouten bitnet: stouten@embl --------------------------------------------------------------------------- S H O G I R U L E S ==================== Shogi is a Japanese board game played by two players. The object of the game is to capture the opponent's King. Shogi is played on a nine-by-nine board. The vertical rows are called files, the horizontal ones ranks or just rows. Each player has twenty pieces: one King, two Gold Generals, two Silver Generals, two kNights, two Lances, one Rook, one Bishop and nine Pawns. The player moving up the board and making the first move is referred to as black and his opponent white, although in Shogi sets all pieces have the same colour. They are differentiated only in direction: pieces pointing away from a player are his. The pieces lie flat on the board and have their Japanese name written on them. THE MOVES --------- King: one step in any direction per move Gold General: one step per move any way except diagnoally backward (as a king but not diagonally backward) Silver General: one step per move forwards or diagonally (as a king but not sideways or vertically backward) Knight: one step to left or right, and two steps forward (the only piece which may jump over other pieces) Rook: moves vertically or horizontally any distance Bishop: moves diagonally any distance Lance: moves forward any distance Pawn: one step forward Apart from the King and the Gold General all pieces can promote. After promotion their moves are as follows: Promoted Silver, promoted kNight, promoted Lance and promoted Pawn all move as a Gold. The promoted Rook in addition to the moves of the unpromoted Rook can move one step in the diagonal directions. It either moves like a Rook or like a King. The promoted Bishop in addition to the moves of the unpromoted Bishop can move one step horizontally or vertically. It either moves like a Bishop or like a King. PROMOTION --------- The three rows furthest away from a player are called the promotion zone. Apart from the King and the Gold, any piece can be promoted to a more powerful piece when it makes a move completely or partly in the promotion zone. So, when a piece moves into, out of or fully inside the promotion zone it may be promoted upon completion of its move. Promotion is optional, provided that the piece still can make a legal move in case it is not promoted: if a Pawn or a Lance move to the last row, or a Knight moves to either of the last two rows, it must be promoted. In Shogi sets promoting a piece is done by turning this piece upside down. Its promoted name is written on its other side. CAPTURING AND DROPPING PIECES ----------------------------- When one piece moves onto the same square as an opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is captured. All pieces capture in the same way that they move. Captured pieces become part of the capturer's force. In a later move, instead of moving a piece on the board, a player may put a piece that he has captured from his opponent back onto the board, in an empty square. This is called dropping a piece. Pieces are always dropped unpromoted: if a promoted piece is captured, it reverts to its unpromoted rank. Pieces may be dropped on any empty square on the board with only three restrictions: 1) After dropping a piece it must be able to make a legal move. This applies to Pawns, Knights or Lances. They may not be dropped onto a square from which they will never be able to move. 2) Attacking the King by dropping a Pawn on the square in front of him is not allowed if the King cannot prevent being captured on the following move. To use the Chess expression: checkmating the King with a Pawn drop is prohibited. 3) There may be no more than one Pawn per vertical row for each player. DRAWS ----- The game of Shogi has very few draws, mainly because of the possibility to drop pieces. Draws cannot be offered and can arise from two situations: 1) A position (including the pieces in hand) occurs 4 times with the same player to move ("Sennichite"). However, if this is caused by consecutive checks (direct attacks on the King, threatening to capture it on the next move) by one side, the player giving these checks loses the game. 2) Both Kings reached their respective promotion zones (or they cannot be prevented to do so) and cannot be given check. In that case the players may decide to count their pieces where the King does not count, the Rook and Bishop count as 5 points, and all other pieces as one point. Promotion is disregarded. If both players have at least 24 points the game is a draw ("Jishogi"). If a player has less, he loses the game. NOTATION -------- Moves are represented by the abbreviation of a piece, followed by the indication of the square where the piece goes to. Abbreviations are: K = King, R = Rook, B = Bishop, G = Gold, S = Silver, N = kNight, L = Lance, P = Pawn. If the representation is ambiguous then the starting square is given too (e.g. G4a-5b). Drops are indicated by ' or * (e.g. P'8f or P*8f). Promotion is indicated by a + behind the move (e.g. B7g+). A promoted piece is represented by a + followed by the abbreviation of the unpromoted piece (e.g. +S3d). INITIAL SETUP ------------- The representation of the board with the initial setup (which has become the de facto standard in electronic correspondence Shogi) is given below. The w and b in front of the abbreviations indicate white and black respectively. Captured pieces are kept in the boxes at the right side of the board. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 +--------------------------------------------+ White in hand: | wL | wN | wS | wG | wK | wG | wS | wN | wL | a +------------------+ +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | wR | | | | | | wB | | b | | +--------------------------------------------+ +------------------+ | wP | wP | wP | wP | wP | wP | wP | wP | wP | c +-------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | d +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | e +--------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | f +--------------------------------------------+ | bP | bP | bP | bP | bP | bP | bP | bP | bP | g +--------------------------------------------+ Black in hand: | | bB | | | | | | bR | | h +------------------+ +--------------------------------------------+ | | | bL | bN | bS | bG | bK | bG | bS | bN | bL | i | | +--------------------------------------------+ +------------------+ Pieter Stouten, 30 May 1990.