Sho shogi


Shō shōgi is a 16th-century form of shogi, and the immediate predecessor of the modern game. It was played on a 9×9 board with the same setup as in modern shogi, except that an extra piece stood in front of the king: a 'drunk elephant' that promoted into a prince, which is effectively a second king. According to the Sho Shōgi Zushiki, the drunk elephant was eliminated by the Emperor Go-Nara, and it is assumed that the drop rule was introduced at about the same time, giving rise to shogi as we know it today.

Rules of the game

Objective

The objective of the game is to capture your opponent's king and crown prince or all other pieces.

Game equipment

Two players, Black and White, play on a board ruled into a grid of 9 ranks by 9 files. The squares are undifferentiated by marking or color.
Each player has a set of 21 wedge-shaped pieces, of slightly different sizes. From largest to smallest they are:
Most of the English names were chosen to correspond to rough equivalents in Western chess, rather than as translations of the Japanese names.
Each piece has its name in the form of two kanji written on its face. On the reverse side of some pieces are two other characters, often in a different color ; this reverse side is turned up to indicate that the piece has been promoted during play. The pieces of the two sides do not differ in color, but instead each piece is shaped like a wedge, and faces forward, toward the opposing side. This shows who controls the piece during play.

Table of pieces

Listed here are the pieces of the game with their Japanese representation:
PieceKanjiRōmajiAbr.Meaning
King 王将ōshō王royal general
King 玉将gyokushō玉jade general
Drunken Elephant酔象suizō酔drunken elephant
Crown prince太子taishi太crown prince
Rook飛車hisha飛flying chariot
Promoted rook竜王ryūō竜dragon king
Bishop角行kakugyō角angle mover
Promoted bishop竜馬ryūma馬dragon horse
Gold general金将kinshō金gold general
Silver general銀将ginshō銀silver general
Promoted silver成銀narigin全promoted silver
Knight桂馬keima桂laureled horse
Promoted knight成桂narikei圭promoted laurel
Lance香車kyōsha香incense chariot
Promoted lance成香narikyō杏promoted incense
Pawn歩兵fuhyō歩foot soldier
Promoted pawnと金tokinとreaches gold

English speakers sometimes refer to promoted bishops as horses and promoted rooks as dragons, after their Japanese names, and generally use the Japanese name tokin for promoted pawns. Silver generals and gold generals are commonly referred to simply as silvers and golds.
The characters inscribed on the backs of the pieces to indicate promoted rank may be in red ink, and are usually cursive. The characters on the backs of the pieces that promote to gold generals are cursive versions of 金 'gold', becoming more cursive as the value of the original piece decreases. These abbreviated characters have these equivalents in print: 全 for promoted silver, 今 for promoted knight, 仝 for promoted lance, and 个 for promoted pawn. Another convention has abbreviated versions of the original characters, with a reduced number of strokes: 圭 for promoted knight, 杏 for promoted lance, with promoted silver the same 全 as above, and と for tokin.

Setup

Each side places his pieces in the positions shown below, pointing toward the opponent.
That is, the first rank is |L|N|S|G|K|G|S|N|L|.
The players alternate making a move, with Black moving first. A move consists of moving a single piece on the board and potentially promoting that piece or displacing an opposing piece. Each of these options is detailed below.

Movement and capture

An opposing piece is captured by displacement: That is, if a piece moves to a square occupied by an opposing piece, the opposing piece is displaced and removed from the board. A piece cannot move to a square occupied by a friendly piece.
Each piece on the game moves in a characteristic pattern. Pieces move either orthogonally, or diagonally. The knight is an exception in that it does not move in a straight line.
If a lance or pawn, pieces that cannot retreat or move aside, advances across the board until it can no longer move, it must promote.
Some pieces are capable of several kinds of movement, with the type of movement most often depending on the direction in which they move. The movement categories are:

Step movers

Some pieces move only one square at a time.
The step movers are the king, drunken elephant, gold general, silver general and the 9 pawns on each side.

Jumping piece

The knight can jump, that is, it can pass over any intervening piece, whether friend or foe, with no effect on either.

Ranging piece

The bishop and rook can move any number of empty squares along a straight line, limited only by the edge of the board. If an opposing piece intervenes, it may be captured by moving to that square and removing it from the board. A ranging piece must stop where it captures, and cannot bypass a piece that is in its way. If a friendly piece intervenes, the moving piece is limited to a distance that stops short of the intervening piece; if the friendly piece is adjacent, it cannot move in that direction at all.

Promotion

A player's promotion zone consists of the three farthest ranks, at the original line of the opponent's pawns and beyond. If a piece crosses the board within the promotion zone, including moves into, out of, or wholly within the zone, then that player may choose to promote the piece at the end of the turn. Promotion is effected by turning the piece over after it moves, revealing the name of its promoted rank.
Promoting a piece has the effect of changing how that piece moves until it is removed from the board. Each piece promotes as follows:
If a pawn, knight or lance reaches the farthest rank, it must be promoted, since it would otherwise have no legal move on subsequent turns.

Individual pieces

Below are diagrams indicating each piece's movement. Pieces are paired with their promotion. Pieces with a grey heading start out in the game; those with a blue heading only appear on the board after promotion. Betza's funny notation has been included in brackets for easier reference.

Check and mate

When a player makes a move such that the opponent's king or crown prince could be captured on the following move, the move is said to give check to the king or crown prince; the king or crown prince is said to be in check. If a player's king or crown prince is in check and no legal move by that player will get the king or crown prince out of check, the checking move is also mate, and can effectively win the game.
A player is not allowed to give perpetual check.

Game end

A player who captures the opponent's king and crown prince wins the game. In practice this rarely happens, as a player will resign when checkmated, as otherwise when loss is inevitable.
A player who makes an illegal move loses immediately.
There is one other possible ways for a game to end: repetition. If the same position occurs four times with the same player to play, then the game is no contest.

Game notation

The method used in English-language texts to express shogi moves was established by George Hodges in 1976. It is derived from the algebraic notation used for chess, but differs in several respects.
A typical example is P-8f.
The first letter represents the piece moved: P = pawn, L = lance, N = knight, S = silver, G = gold, B = bishop, R = rook, DE = drunken elephant, K = king. Promoted pieces have a + added in front of the letter. e.g., +P for a tokin. The designation of the piece is followed by a symbol indicating the type of move: - for an ordinary move and x for a capture. Next is the designation for the square on which the piece lands. This consists of a number representing the file and a lowercase letter representing the rank, with 1a being the top right corner and 9i being the bottom left corner.
If a move entitles the player to promote the piece, then a + is added to the end to signify that the promotion was taken, or an = to indicate that it was declined.
For example, Nx7c= indicates a knight capturing on 7c without promoting.
In cases where the above notation would be ambiguous, the designation of the start square is added after the designation for the piece in order to make clear which piece is meant.
Moves are commonly numbered as in chess. For example, the start of a game might look like this:

 1. P-7f P-3d
 2. P-2f G-3b
 3. P-2e Bx8h+
 4. Sx8h S-2b