From: Benjamin Good ANDREW CMU EDU> Date: 3 feb 1999 Subject: wa shogi Excerpts from mail: 3-Feb-99 Re: more taikyoku shogi scans by Patrick Davin LYRA VEGA. >"Sekai no Shogi" says Washogi is played without drops. i think this is pretty darn significant. altho, now that i can't think about it, i can't remember the exact phrasing of what i read/was told. i know i was told that there's no evidence that wa was played with drops. this merely confirms that. but i think somebody told me that there was no evidence that wa was not played with drops either. so this factual item would definitely clear that up. Excerpts from mail: 3-Feb-99 Wa shogi drops by Michael Vanier BBB CALTE >Darn! :-) Looking at the piece moves and the limited number of ranging >pieces really makes it look like the game was meant to be played with >drops. In fact, Wa is pretty close to what you'd get if you wanted to >create the ultimate (playable) shogi variant with drops -- the large number >of pieces with different moves guarantee a very large number of possible >tesujis. Plus the ratio of ranging/stepping pieces is fairly close to what >we see in shogi, but vastly smaller than in Chu shogi. i've played wa both ways, altho not many times. i definitely prefer it w/ drops. i thought it was too slow w/ drops, altho admittedly the fact that i was playing it by email did not help. Excerpts from mail: 3-Feb-99 Re: Wa shogi drops by Rikard Nordgren ETEK CHA >If wa is better when played with drops why not do it? Then we make the >future not the >history. Excerpts from mail: 3-Feb-99 Re: Wa shogi drops by Michael Vanier BBB CALTE >Of course, I agree totally. Still, some folks in the shogi community >appear to sometimes value historical accuracy over play value, so it would >be nice if the historical record supported the commonly-held view that Wa >is better played with drops. I suspect the authors of Shogi no Sekai >probably were just tabulating the rules and didn't actually play the games >themselves. I also understand that the few other sources on Wa shogi >disagree with each other in many fundamental ways, even in the moves of the >pieces, so it's difficult to know what the inventors really had in mind. i can appreciate the importance of having historical accuracy, but just because history made it that way, doesn't mean we have to play it that way. if wa ever picks up a decent following of players, i would bet my money that they will play it w/ drops. later kids, ben