From: Bernhard März arcor de> Date: 16 mar 2007 Subject: RE: Shogi22680 (from Jochum Drechsler) Because of problems with sending this mail to the shogilist, I send this= =20 posting from Jochum Drechsler instead: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Bernhard, I was also thinking about random starting positions in shogi a while ago. Here are my thoughts. I liked the idea of Chess960 when I came across it for several reasons. First of all, I have no chess opening knowledge whatsoever. I can compete with a week club player if I avoid standart openings because of my ability in shogi. So Chess960 would give me a much better chance to play intersting games against other chess players. The other point is that I personally find general chess thinking and understanding of a position much more appealing than memorizing opening sequences. I think that chess games (at a high level) got less interesting because of the importance of opening knowledge (by move sequence). The situation in shogi might be a bit different. In shogi there are more possible positions theoretically and also more playable variations. So the opening might be a bit less important in shogi just because of the greater possibility of opening variations. Another point is that the opening theory in shogi seems to be less completely analysed yet. There were some fundamentally new openings discovered in the last years. But it is only a matter of time that we reach the same state in shogi as in chess. What could a random shogi look like? The aim of Chess960 was to randomize the starting position in order to limit the importance of strict (sequential) opening knowledge while keeping the general "feel" of a normal chess game. Therefore some restrictions on the possible starting positions were devised. And I think they are good! On a first thought I only wanted to randomize the starting position in shogi minimally to keep the game as close to the original as possible. I only changed the starting position of rook and bishop in the second row. For symatrical reasons and to stay close to the normal game the rook is always on the right. That gives 40 different positions. I think this enough variation for most of us I think. But if you want to go a bit further, I would only change the generals on their four squares next to the king. I do not want to change the position of the lances and knights. The lances and knights in normal shogi are there to protect the edges. This is an integral part of shogi I think. I imagined completely random positions on the first line. But for me most of them (with knight or lance closer to the middle) did not "feel" like shogi. For me these positions are to far away from the original. Randomizing the second row and the generals gives 240 different positions. In my opinion this is definitely enough variation and it "feels" like just different openings of the normal game. Complete randomization is surely also possible and is probably still close to normal shogi. This is indicated by the fact that handicap games still feel like shogi in the general game play. But for me that would be to much to be attractive. Thus my version of random shogi comes in two stages. In the first stage only bishop and rook are randomized. In the second stage (if you want more variation) the generals are also randomized. I did not have a name for this. Lets call it shogi240. When we meet in Pullach next weekend, we can have some games of random shogi if you want. (and if you stay over night till sunday we could play even more...). Happy gaming, Jochum. --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: = shogi-l shogi net EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Ys.= aB5TiY.= c2hvZ2kt Or send an email to: shogi-unsubscribe topica com For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=3DTEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------