From: Sam Sloan VM TAU AC IL> Date: 31 mar 1995 Subject: Shogi Variants George Hodges spent a lot of time and money trying to resurrect shogi variants, which had names in Japanese like big shogi, small shogi, middle shogi and great-great shogi and pieces like the phoenix, the drunk elephant and the blind tiger. The largest of these shogi games was played on a 25x25 board and had 354 pieces. Most of these were really proposed games, which were never actively played by more than a few players. At Ishi Press, we took his orders and found craftsmen willing to make the sets he wanted, but there was little demand for or interest in these shogi variants in Japan itself. Sam Sloan