From: Hiroki Kawada <kawada <at> MERL <dot> HITACHI <dot> CO <dot> JP>
Date: 30 oct 1995
Subject: Stalemate in shogi

Hi,

There have been a lot of discussion about 'stalemate', a position in which
a player can move or drop none of his/her piece in his/her turn.  As I
thought the result was not clearly seen, I sent a question to Mr. Ohnogi in
Nihon Shogi Renmei (Japanese Shogi Association), who is in charge of
spreading shogi.  My question sent was:

In the following position of Black's turn, does Black lose the game or draw?
(Mac users can see a good shape of this board by 'Courier' font.)

    1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9    White's hand:
  -------------------------------------  All other pieces
a |+bL|+bN|+bS| bG| bK| bG|+bS|+bN|+bL|
  -------------------------------------
b | bP| bP| bP| bP| bP| bP| bP| bP| bP|
  -------------------------------------
c |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------
d |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------
e |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------
f |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------  Black's hand:
g |   |   |   |   | wG|   |   |   |   |  none
  -------------------------------------
h |   |   |   |   | wK|   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------
i |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  -------------------------------------


The answer, back from the department of spreadings in Nihon Shogi Renmei, was:

In the rulebook of shogi there is no rule determining win or lose in this
position.  According to ordinary (?) professional player(s) (name or number
of the players was not written), Black may lose because he has no legal
move and there is no conception of stalemate in shogi.
If a similar question will come to Q&A corner in Shogi Sekai (a magazine
issued by Nihon Shogi Renmei) , we will answer the same.


I saw at least the rule book does not cover the positon shown above,
though, I believe it should not appear in our games.  But I hope the rule
for 'stalemate' would be made up, because the 'stalemate' position may
happen 'theoritically' and I am not satisfied with the rulebook which does
not cover all possible positions in shogi.

I will send the same question to the Q&A corner in Shogi Sekai to rase the
same discussion among the Japanese shogi players.

Hiroki
Hiroki Kawada                     * "After the defeat
Mechanical Engineering Res. Lab., *   it is a valuable time."
Sec. 71, Hitachi, Ltd.,           * K. Yonenaga,
Kandatsu 502, Tsuchiura,          *  Shogi (Japanese chess) player
Ibaraki  300 Japan