From: Toshiya Kawakami LEAD DION NE JP> Date: 26 mar 1999 Subject: Re: Capture a king? Hi. Pauli wrote: >I have understood that shogi rules allow a player to move or leave his own >king into a check (probably because of mistake)? Thus, the opponent could >capture the king on the next move. How are these situations handled in >practice? Is the king really captured, or does the player that leaves his >king in check automatically lose (game ends before capturing the king)? In Japan, 10 million (or more?) people know shogi rule, but only 10000 (or less?) people know chess rule. When a shogi player start learning chess for the first time, most of them are surprised or misunderstand at the chess rule, "Capturing King is an illegal move". IMHO, your shogi program must be in compliant with the shogi rule, and simply, the move generator may not have a function that tells whether the King is in check or not. >When one's king is checkmated, he is supposed to resign. So, a shogi game >does not really end immediately after the checkmate move, but after >resigning, right? But does the checkmated side have to resign? Or is it >legal to still make a move (of course this makes no sense), thus forcing >the opponent to capture the king on the next move? > >PS. I am asking these stupid and theoretical questions because I want to >handle these situations correctly in my shogi program (Shocky). > >Best regards, > >Pauli Misikangas I think so. At shogi, The checkmate move does not end the game immediately. Even if a player (human or program) is checkmated, the game should be continued till resigning or time control. However, I never seen any shogi programs that does not end the game in these checkmate situations. :-) Regards, -- Toshiya Kawakami email: kawakami lead dion ne jp