From: Arnoud Kleynjan <akleynjan <at> IXONET <dot> NL>
Date: 16 apr 1996
Subject: Re: Checkmate rule

-- [ From: Arnoud Kleynjan * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

Hi Reijer,

>>Still, I like to be persistent and ask again: if in Shogi there is no mate
(only taking of the king), how can there be a rule that says that mate with
a pawn drop is illegal?

The fact that a Shogi game ends with the taking of the king doesn't
nessesarily mean there can be no concept of mate. Think of mate as saying:
"I'm going to take your king the next move, no matter what you do". Then the
rule *can* be a "true" shogi rule, without being inconsistent. I can see how
such a thing got to be a custom between chess players. "Hey, this game is
over, look, nothing you can do about it!"

Obviously customs and rules grew apart a bit to far, because if you do
consider such a concept of mate, the pawn move discussed here still *is*
mate. Perhaps it's not the rule itself that's inconsistent here, but it's
interpretation? I can think of a couple of other situations where the
interpretation of this ruse is very complicated. For one thing: the king
always has the option of taking the pawn. Next move the other player will
take that king, but that's not untill the next move! How's that different
from letting the general take the pawn?

The fact that in those circumstances the pawn move is *not* allowed, while
it *is* allowed in the case discussed (the general takes the pawn, the rook
takes the king), leads me to doubt its interpretation most of all.
(and I think most "western" players would probably object to the discussed
move being played!)

FWIW: I like the whole idea of allowing a king to be taken. It allows a
player to take some desparate gambles in desparate times, and more
importantly, it solves all kind of troubles about missing a check.

Say in "western" chess you play a game, and after it's finished the losing
side point out that somewhere along the line a check was overlooked. Does
that invalidate all of the moves after that point? Does it invalidate the
whole game?
For example the Compuserve chess forum has as rule that the game will be
restored to that point if it was five or less moves back, and allowed to
stand if it it is more than five moves back.

Obviously this is rather cludgy.Simply saying "well, you missed you chance
there, bud", makes a lot of sense to me. <g>

I cannot shake the impression that the whole "don't leave your king in
check" rule has grown from a custom (I mean, it's not a thing you want to do
every day <g>), into a rule, and has needlessly complicated chess and made
it a tiny little bit less interesting.

Just my .02

Have fun,
Arnoud Kleynjan