From: teruko PO2 NSKNET OR JP> Date: 8 apr 1999 Subject: Re: variant preference Dear Reijer, Thanks for another amusing response. About the history, when I contacted the renmei they told me that aberrations of shogi fall outside of their sphere, they mentioned also their belief that gaijin have been responsible for some of these creations. However Giuseppe Baggio informs me that kyoto shogi was created in 1976 by a certain Katsuya Tamiya, information gleaned from a work entitled "sekaino shogi", I intend to attempt to order a copy of this book upon completion of this message. Micro shogi was introduced to the west by Kerry Hanscomb through the journal NOST. It is known in japanese as popii gofun shougi, it seems possible that it was created by Akatsuka Fujio, a famous manga-ist, I have written in enquiry to his publishers but am still awaiting a reply. There exists a micro page at: http://www.kolumbus.fi/geodun/poppy/shogi.htm maintained by Georg Dunkel. Georg plays against moves contributed by his visitors and will also play individual games. (My result so far is one loss and one lost looking position.) There is also a page somewhere listing a rather staggering number of chess variants. The only ones I've tried are bughouse and alice, both of which can be fun. Yesterday I received a copy of Eteroscacco, the journal of AISE. Amongst other things it includes games in a chess variant called mutanti progressivi, which would appear to be as brain bending a game as one could wish for (I dont understand italian, so I'm not sure I fully understand the rules). I think that "European shogi players" have already opted for variety by going for shogi and as such are susceptible to further variants to a greater extent than straight shogi players who have arrived at the game on their cultural flow. As with the noughts and crosses I think it may be that a serious investigator of micro or kyoto shogi would be able to kill the game, these are amusing games for a sunny day sharing a few beers by the river with a friend and not caring too much who wins how many games, in short if it's fun what would be gained by entering the hall of fame-perhaps it's for the best that these games remain so obscure. All the usual from Michael.