From: Adam Atkinson <ghira <at> MISTRAL <dot> CO <dot> UK>
Date: 17 mar 1997
Subject: Re: "The Art of Shogi"

On 16-Mar-97 20:47:52, Sam Sloan said:
>I believe that the purpose of such a book is or should be to teach how to
>play shogi.
Indeed.

>Getting involved in long discussions about theoretical possibilities which
>almost never come up except in composed problems does not serve any teaching
>purpose and will only discourage those who really want to learn.
Long discussion? Hardly. One line would do. "The only reason not to
promote a pawn, rook or bishop would be to avoid running into the problem
of illegal pawn drop mates." Or maybe I don't know what "positional" means.
Is it the same as "strategic"? If so, then the book is correct in that the
only reasons not to promote pawns/rooks/bishops would presumably be
tactical. (It says there is never a _positional_ reason to do so, but it
doesn't say there is never any reason to do so.) I said "minor quibble" in
my original post -I think the book is superb. (Though as a very weak player
who am I to say?

The author mentions an awkward case that could arise in the "counting
points" version of the draw rule (two mutually defending pieces are
outside the promotion zone) and I think that's probably a farely rare
occurrence as well (as indeed are draws). I think it was worth a mention.
So, I would say, is the above. More worth a mention that the possibility of
stalemate which I brought up on the list at some stage. That _is_ a
theoretical possibility which will almost never happen in play. (But if the
author had decided to include a constructed stalemate and said "You can
construct a stalemate position, like this, but it has never happened in
play and probably never will." I wouldn't have complained about him wasting
space/time. Long discussion? No. One diagram. One sentence.)

Adam Atkinson (ghira <at> mistral <dot> co <dot> uk)
"That's the biggest shark I've ever seen" he said, superficially.