From: "J. Andrew Lipscomb" <ewwa <at> CHATTANOOGA <dot> NET>
Date: 11 apr 2000
Subject: Re: 2 funny things happened

>           The other funny thing was that Marino-san and
>           Stryker-san had an
>           exciting game with a crazy finish in their
>           handicap game.  George
>           Marino got a very good tsume on John Stryker, but
>           after the tsume
>           happened, Stryker-san pointed out that Marino-san
>           had "nifued" during
>           the game, and it was still on the board in the
>           final position.
>
>           We scored the game a win for George Marino, but
>           the nifu called into
>           question whether he should win or not.  I said I
>           wasn't sure how to
>           rule, but as a chess TD the mate should stand,
>           despite the prtevious
>           illegal move.  They apparently liked this ruling,
>           but now, as they
>           say during football games on TV, "YOU make the
>           call."  Was it or was
>           it not the fair decision?

I am actually working on a set of Shogi rules (templated off the
Canadian version of the rules of chess, but heavily modified to be
shogi-suitable).  Defining that situation is tricky.  First (I am
presuming that "nifu" means two unpromoted pawns of the same side on the
same file), if Stryker calls it immediately, he wins, no question.

The first question is, how far can you go back to claim an illegal move?
 In Western-chess blitz rules, you must claim it before making your next
move.  This is a case that cannot exist in Western chess, on the other
hand--the fact that an illegality occurred is obvious from the board
position alone, but none of the later moves were illegal (unlike the
case where a king is left in check for several moves--a player who does
that moves illegally every time).  Well, I suppose if you move a pawn
back to your first rank, but that would be so obvious no one would miss
it, I would hope.

My current draft is that you can claim on that position as long as the
illegal situation remains (ie until one of the pawns promotes or is
captured).  The real trick is to define that such that a mate ends the
game, but without depriving the player of a remedy if the mating move
itself is illegal.