page_title: Chu shogi
section_title: Game equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Chu shogi / Rules of the game / Game equipment
caption_attribution_description: Initial board setup of Chu shogi, made by myself, Krun, using OmniGraffle. The pieces were made with Adobe Illustrator.
context_page_description: Chu shogi is a strategy board game native to Japan. It is similar to modern shogi in its rules and gameplay. Its name means "mid-sized shogi", from a time when there were three sizes of shogi variants that were regularly being played. Chu shogi seems to have been developed in the early 14th century as a derivative of dai shogi. There are earlier references, but it is not clear that they refer to the game as we now know it.
  With fewer pieces than dai shogi, the game is considered more exciting, and was still commonly played in Japan in 1928–1939, especially in the Keihanshin region. The game largely died out after World War II despite the advocacy of prominent shogi players such as Okazaki Shimei and Ōyama Yasuharu. In 1976, there were about 30–40 masters of the game. It has gained some adherents in the West, and still maintains a society and an online following in Japan.
  The main reference work in English is the Middle Shogi Manual by George Hodges.
context_section_description: Two players, Black and White (or 先手 sente and 後手 gote), play on a board ruled into a grid of 12 ranks (rows) and 12 files (columns), with a total of 144 squares.  The squares are undifferentiated by marking or color, unlike a Western chess board.
  Each player has a set of 46 pieces of 21 different types, and each piece has its name written on it in Japanese kanji. The writing is typically in black. On the reverse side of most pieces (i.e. except the king, queen, and lion) there are characters to indicate the piece's promoted rank, typically written in red. The pieces are wedge-shaped and their orientation indicates which player they belong to, as they point toward the opposing side. In all, the players must remember 28 moves for these pieces. The pieces are of slightly different sizes; from largest to smallest (most to least powerful) they are:
  1 King
  1 Queen (also referred to as a "Free king" in some sources, which is a direct translation of the Japanese name)
  1 Lion
  2 Dragon kings
  2 Dragon horses
  2 Rooks
  2 Bishops
  1 Kirin
  1 Phoenix
  1 Drunk elephant
  2 Blind tigers
  2 Ferocious leopards
  2 Gold generals
  2 Silver generals
  2 Copper generals
  2 Vertical movers
  2 Side movers
  2 Reverse chariots
  2 Lances
  2 Go-betweens
  12 Pawns
  Listed below are the pieces of the game and, if they promote, the pieces they promote to. Names are rough translations that have become somewhat standardized in English. Pieces are listed alphabetically by their English name.
  The promotions apply only to pieces which start out with the ranks in the left-most column, that is, pieces with these ranks written in black; promoted pieces with those same ranks written in red may not promote further. Pieces which only appear upon promotion, that is, names which only occur written in red, are marked with an asterisk. The king, queen, and lion do not promote.
  ¹ The pronunciations of 龍馬, 奔王, 反車, and 白駒 are irregular. The regular forms ryūme, hon’ō, hansha, and hakuku are also seen.
  ² The alternative pronunciations 盲虎 mekura, 香車 yari, 歩兵 hohei or fu, and 鯨鯢 geigei are also sometimes seen.
  ³ Bishops, gold generals, and rooks arising from promotion (not the ones present initially) are sometimes given the alternate readings chorokaku, と金 tokin, and ginbisha respectively.
  Below is a diagram showing the setup of the players' pieces.  The board setup is symmetrical: the way one player sees their own pieces is the same way that the opposing player sees their pieces.
  In some contexts, one-letter abbreviations may be necessary. Those used in WinBoard are given in the second column of abbreviations.
  Promoted pieces are notated by a + in front of the symbol; thus a white horse is +L, and a promoted gold (now a rook) is +G.
caption: Initial setup with the full name in kanji on each piece.
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