From: Nick Bardsley ICC CO UK> Date: 30 nov 1999 Subject: Bare King Blues... [the famous bare King rule...] I don't think the rule applies to tokins You don't think so, but how do you know? Might 'kinsho' in the texts be a shorthand for 'piece with Gold General move'? Just as George Hodges maintains that 'moves like Lion' with regard to part of the Lion Hawk's moves in Tenjiku is a shorthand for 'two-step area mover', while others maintain that it means full Lion power. It's a matter of interpretation... and can the lone tokin really win? Hm. I spoke (rubbish) in haste. It depends on the position. Colin Adams has shown that a King can capture the last tokin by force from certain positions and I think you can probably only stalemate an entering King with tokin and King. (But while I've experimented with pieces [and for this purpose the unpromoted Ferocious Leopard looks promising btw because of its advancing/retreating symmetry - well... I like the piece anyway, seems to get a bad press for some reason] I can't claim to have exhausted any possibilities.) I'm probably talking like a man with a paper nose (To use a Doc Smithism...). There are two solutions to this problem. Either we play by the historical rules stated by the ancient documents (interpreted by Mr Hodges) or else we come up with our own rules. I vote on the first of these but if we decided on the second I would vote to remove the bare king rule (it is really a silly rule) and the pawn non-promotion rule (also a silly rule). Look. I repeat again my admiration for George Hodges. But it is not really acceptable to rely on the interpretation of one man, no matter how erudite he may be. (If credentials are really needed, I speak as someone trained in the history of ideas but I don't wish to hold that up like Medusa's head and turn all debate to stone) The documents, I take it, are in the public domain and their interpretation should properly be a matter for several informed and able people. [btw MSM mentions a book called 'How to play Middle Shogi', published in 1984 in Japan by the now deceased Matsuda Shoichi. The very valuable handicap system and games it contains are reproduced in their entirety in MSM - but I can hardly believe the book had no section on the rules and this does not seem to have been reproduced. It leaves me wondering as to Matsuda's interpretations of the rules recently discussed on this list...] As for making rules up. I don't think that is quite what I am advocating. I actually think the bare King 'rule' was more likely a convention of polite play. We can happily dispense with it if that is simplest (the historical interpretation by George Hodges means that it is entirely besides the point - everybody now knows that Rook and King will always mate (though you still get people who insist on it being demonstrated...). As for the Pawn promotion rule...;-]... I find it rather amusing actually and if someone is fool enough not to promote their pawn on the 9th rank it serves them right that they can't then do it until the 12th. But stating that it doesn't apply wouldn't harm the game, so why not? (Again, prolly a convention anyway...) [Re: bare King] If the americans have misinterpreted the rules then that is not our problem. ;-] I understand what you're saying but it hardly advances the cause of Chu. Better would be to demonstrate to them that their interpretation changes the game in ways that were not intended. (Which, I accept, may well be the case.) Nick Bardsley PS. On that note, to the relief of many I'm sure, I will shut up about the rules of Chu and try to beat the computer opponent in Colin's Java Chu player over lunch...;-]