From: Phil Holland BCS ORG UK> Date: 13 apr 1997 Subject: New Shogi variant? I discovered a new Shogi variant (for me!) at the British Shogi Championships on a Japanese leaflet left behind by the Japanese Professionals who came to London last year. Richard West and I have now played 3 games at the Royston Shogi Club. Not surprisingly Richard has won all of them, as I have yet to work out exactly what I am supposed to do to protect my King properly. The starting position is: 5 4 3 2 1 +--+--+--+--+--+ |wS|wG|wK|wG|wS| a +--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | | | b +--+--+--+--+--+ | |wP|wP|wP| | c +--+--+--+--+--+ | |bP|bP|bP| | d +--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | | | e +--+--+--+--+--+ |bS|bG|bK|bG|bS| f +--+--+--+--+--+ This position does not seem to favour Black, because immediate capture of the Pawns is fruitless, as the advanced Pawn cannot be defended against attack by one of the Generals. As far as I can work them out, here are the rules of this variant that differ from Shogi: (1) The only piece that seems to promote is the Pawn which promotes to a Tokin on the back rank. (2) The Silver does not promote at all. The Japanese leaflet seems to call the game 'SHO', or maybe 'SHO-chan' (my Japanese is not at all good...). I'm probably going to call it SHO for my next version of the Shogi Variants program - hopefully for release in a restricted form in the Autumn - unless I find out more before then. Does anyone recognise this variant? If you do, please can you help me complete the rules, and/or confirm the name, for it? TIA..................Phil ************************************************************ * Philip R Holland * * Postal Shogi League mobile: +44-(0)850-295556 * * e-mail: bcs org uk> * * URL: http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rjhare/shogi/tsa.html * ************************************************************