From: Antti Karttunen <karttu <at> MDATA <dot> FI>
Date: 21 nov 1992
Subject: Re: Error in book?

>
> I have just acquired a copy of the excellent book Shogi for Beginners by John
> Fairbairn. I am a little puzzled by an apparent discrepancy in this book, I
> wonder if anyone can help?
>
> The statement is made (p3) that black 'plays first and in diagrams is always
> assumed to play up the board'.
>
> The statement is made (p143) that 'if a set has two types of king, black
> takes the one marked      ---
>                            |
>                           ---
>                            |`
>                           ---
>
> Then, in all the diagrams in the book except the ones preceding p13, the king
> marked as indicated above is shown as the *WHITE* king. Have I missed
> something, or is this just a series of misprints, or is there an error in the
> above statements?
>
> If anyone who has a copy of the book can answer the above, I'd be grateful.
>
> Thanks.
>
 
    The "Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan" tells:
    "Making one king a 'jewel' (= gyoku(shoo)) (by adding one stroke
    to the kanji character for 'king' (= oo(shoo)) avoided having two
    kings on the same board, a custom that supposedly originated on
    the request of an emperor in ancient times. The better player has
    the king and the other player has the jewel."
 
However, I believe there is much more mundane reason for this.
As you wrote, the kanji (= chinese characters used in Japan) for jewel
(GYOKU) looks like this:
      ---
       |
      ---
       |`
      ---
and the kanji for king (OO, pronounced as long 'o', somewhat like in english
word 'door') looks like this, i.e. it's otherwise similar except missing
that dot.
      ---
       |
      ---
       |
      ---
 
Now imagine some of those Japanese board-diagrams using the latter kanji
for both kings...
 
> Another matter - I haven't yet seen any shogi mating problems on this list
> (which I only just joined, so excuse a new boy making all sorts of outrageous
> suggestions). Isn't this a good place to display such problems? I guess one
> could use an ascii board based on the following representation of the initial
> setup?
>
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>     white      | l | n | s | g | k | g | s | n | l |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                |   | r |   |   |   |   |   | b |   |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                |   | B |   |   |   |   |   | R |   |
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>                | L | N | S | G | K | G | S | N | L |     black
>                +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
>
> Which I guess is self-explanatory?
>
> Just a thought...
 
Well, somebody may argue that we should use the 'standard' board of SHOGI-L
(given in file SHOGI BOARD in listserver), but your version is
fine for me, and is more pleasant at least for my eyes...
 
But anyway, good idea! There are some good problems in Fairbairn's book,
but I have already solved all of them (well, almost ;-)
So if anybody has any good ones, please post! (Maybe the old archived
messages contain some. I haven't yet checked all of them...)
In recent message about the second shogi workshop in Germany, it was
mentioned that:
>     Pieter Stouten got the workshop started with a good introduction to
>the game in which he outlined basic Shogi strategy.  Hans Geuns gave an
>interesting lecture on solving Tsume Shogi problems, including one which
>was over 70 moves long!  When asked how long it took him to solve it, Hans
>replied "Only 12 hours".
 
If anybody has this one in the electronic form could you enlighten also
us other members of SHOGI-L mailing list with it? Thanks!
 
>
> Roger Hare.
>
 
Antti Karttunen / karttu <at> mits <dot> mdata <dot> fi /  $B%"%s%C%F%#!!%+%k%C%H%%%M%s (J