Talk:Chu shogi

message: Hi Akamemoto,
I appreciate you color coding the movement diagrams here and in the shogi article. It looks good, and makes the diagrams much more legible. However, I see you've now gone from a system of giving each type of movement its own color to using different colors for each piece. May I ask why? As it is now, there is no continuity across the game, and several of the diagrams have colors that are rather difficult to distinguish, meaning that they're little better legibility-wise than when they had no color at all. kwami 23:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  movement color 

message: Subject says it all.  I was wondering if the users here thought it would be a good idea to change it to the "English version" of the name.  I'm really not sure why I used the Romaji when I began the article.  What do you think?  I think Qilin might be the best option, as it seems to be the "proper spelling".  I personally don't care on the matter, but was wondering if others did or if we should just leave it as Kirin.  --Sivak 22:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no common English version: Qilin is Chinese and Kirin is Japanese. It's normally seen as Kirin in English. Kylin is a fully anglicized word, but hasn't been used much since the nineteenth century. kwami 01:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So I guess I was right to guess Kirin then?  How interesting...  --Sivak 02:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I would actually go with Kyrin, since most websites that allow playing Chu Shogi (Richard's PBM Server, Chess Variants, etc.), as well as George Hodges' Middle Shogi Manual all use "Ky" for the piece in moves lists (Ky-7j) and Kyrin for the name of the piece.TKR101010 (talk) 06:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

text: It doesn't matter much to me; I'd go with "kirin" as that's what we seem to have more of. Double sharp (talk) 23:34, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've changed them all to "kirin", as that is what our larger shogi variant articles had. Double sharp (talk) 14:16, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kirin to Qilin or maybe Kylin 

message: I don't see any mention of Heisei shogi at wiki-ja. Is this at all notable? Is the setup correct? What is an "adjacent square"? Adjacent to a friendly piece? kwami (talk) 07:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heisei shogi 

message: When dicussing the rules with Japanese Chu-Shogi players on the 81Dojo server I learned that they use different promotion rules there. I investigated the matter, and it seems that the rule mentioned in the Wikipedia article is based exclusively on a misunderstanding. For one, the rule mentioned in the article is different from what the Middle Shogi Manual states: it says the possibility to promote on a non-capture returns after one turn, while the MSM states that it only returns after a move with that piece. Both seem to be wrong, based on faulty translation of the Japanese rule descriptions, as well as by drawing conclusions from erroneous solutions to historic mating problems. The correct solutions provide zero evidence that promotability on non-capture could ever be regained without leaving the zone first. A summary of my findings is currently posted at http://hgm.nubati.net/MSM/ChuPromoRule.html . H.G.Muller (talk) 14:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I correccted the article. Now it says that a piece which declined promotion at its first opportunity cannot promote unless (1) it makes a capture or (2) it leaves the zone and reenters, unless it is a pawn moving to the twelfth rank. It also now says that lances that reach the last rank without promoting simply become immobile. (Sorry for reverting you earlier: I didn't see your comment here, and chose to trust the English-language sources based on not knowing of the evidence you have clearly pointed out on your website that they are wrong.) Double sharp (talk) 13:04, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

text: BTW, do you have any info for the other historical shogi variants with promotion zones? Do the same promotion rules apply? Double sharp (talk) 13:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Promotion 

message: Perhaps quite a few section titles from Chess (particularly "History", "Strategy and tactics", "Composition", "Competitive play") would be relevant here, with much possible content. Double sharp (talk) 04:53, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: (Although it has to be noted that much of it would be historical.) Double sharp (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

text: Why aren't wa and ko important? Why weren't the "extra-large" variants meant to be played? Just curious. OneWeirdDude (talk) 22:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The Edo-era sources didn't give very detailed descriptions for ko, IIRC. As for wa, Fairbairn says that multiple sources give descriptions, but that one has many weak pieces and one has many riders(!), so evidently neither must have been felt important enough to need standardisation. Masukawa notes that the only sets of the extra-large variants were meant for display purposes only: presumably because they look impressive but are just not practical to actually play. Perhaps another thing to note is that only in chu, dai, and tenjiku do we have some sense of consistency between the historical sources. Double sharp (talk) 06:23, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, perhaps I should note that the Edo-era sources often disagree for the large variants in such large ways that it is difficult to imagine them being natural, local rule variations, along the lines of giving the queen the knight's move in Western chess. I am not sure how one could get some of the rule variations listed in maka dai dai shogi otherwise. The emperor move is quite striking (jumps to any unprotected square on the board), but according to Japanese Wikipedia there are also records giving it simply the combined move of the lion and the queen. Meanwhile the teaching king causes a problem with the lion dog, because the Edo-era sources for dai dai shogi do indeed give it the Western move of Q3, without mentioning anything about lion power! Only for maka dai dai shogi might they give the lion power, assuming that Japanese Wikipedia has got it right. And then apparently there was another variation giving it the combined powers of the lion and the tenjiku-shogi vice general. Furthermore not all the "free" pieces are actually free versions of the original, and their moves seem to vary between sources again. I suspect that what we have here are mere "display" sets intended to look impressive, and multiple people felt that there needed to be rules so that they could "play" them once or twice, but that these never were actual, codified games that had a real life; the moves were simply plucked out anew from thin air each time. Double sharp (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article expansion 

message: What if your Gold is hanging and the bare King can play KxG immediately? Double sharp (talk) 15:09, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The entire baring rule is in fact controversial, and the reference given to it is not a primary source. In a rule description from 1703, there is a phrase "When pieces are gone, and there are only the 2 kings, one can mate only if he has a promoted gold." (Translation made by Hidetchi from: 盤の面、駒かれになりて、玉二枚、成金一枚一方にあれば、金一枚にてもつめるなり、). It seems that the 'rule' is based on that remark, distorted through time. The whole idea that there should be anything like a baring rule is based on the reasoning that the remark would otherwise be redundant, so that it must have meant something that is not implied by the other rules, even if this requires one to assume it means something completely different from what it says. This argument is rather shaky, as the 1703 document continues by stating "When a small piece knocks down a large piece, or for example a bishop knocks down a large piece by attacking the king and lion, the player with more pieces will going to win.", which no one tried to elevate to a rule yet. It is also not clear how the "promoted Gold" in the 1703 document morphed into an "unpromoted Gold". And that mutual baring should be a draw seems to come from analogy to Shatranj only, without any roots in historic Shogi literature. Yet the Japanese Chu Shogi Association has adopted the Shatranj rule, declaring any bare King a loss, unless you can bare the opponent King on the next move.H.G.Muller (talk) 11:14, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: What would be the point anyway of making it an unpromoted Gold? Surely you would be able to promote it to a Rook from any sane starting position, and easily bring about the mate? Double sharp (talk) 08:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking of that rule: imagine that in chess. 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4, and then Black wins because White cannot immediately restore material equality. How ridiculous! Clearly, some of these are strategic guides. Double sharp (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bare king rule 

message: *A – Reverse Chariot
*B – Bishop
*C – Copper General
*D – Dragon King
*E – Drunk Elephant
*F – Ferocious Leopard
*G – Gold
*H – Dragon Horse
*I – Go-Between
*K – King
*L – Lance
*M – Side Mover
*N – Lion
*O – Kylin
*P – Pawn
*Q – Queen
*R – Rook
*S – Silver General
*T – Blind Tiger
*V – Vertical Mover
*X – Phoenix
A promoted piece is prefixed by a + sign, and hence +X symbolises a queen that was originally a phoenix. The promotions that are not initially present are:
*+D – Soaring Eagle
*+H – Horned Falcon
*+V – Flying Ox
*+M – Free Boar
*+T – Flying Stag
*+L – White Horse
*+A – Whale
Hence the initial setup is as follows:
Setup
l     	f     	c     	s     	g     	e     	k     	g     	s     	c     	f     	l
a     	 	b     	 	t     	x     	o     	t     	 	b     	 	a
m     	v     	r     	h     	d     	q     	n     	d     	h     	r     	v     	m
p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p     	p
 	 	 	i     	 	 	 	 	i     	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	I     	 	 	 	 	I     	 	 	
P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P     	P
M     	V     	R     	H     	D     	N     	Q     	D     	H     	R     	V     	M
A     	 	B     	 	T     	O     	X     	T     	 	B     	 	A
L     	F     	C     	S     	G     	K     	E     	G     	S     	C     	F     	L
This is the largest historical shogi variant that can be played with only single letters. (Tai shogi would start looking like NetHack in such a representation, and that makes me think that the emperor should absolutely be "@".) Double sharp (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Added. Double sharp (talk) 15:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

text: In theory Dai Shogi would still be feasible, if you are willing to make the compromise to consider the primordial King, Queen and Lion promoted pieces, and write them as +E, +X and +O. Then there are exactly 26 unpromoted piece types, but you have to make some very unnatural assignments. With Chu it was not that bad, except N for Lion. (The I, O and X are supposed to be menemonic to the move pattern of the piece.) The problem with double-letter codes (especially mixed with single-letter codes) is that they break the FEN system for position encoding. I prepared the latest WinBoard (version 4.9) for handling bigger variants by allowing the use of 'dressed letters', i.e. letter + punctuation symbol. So now L, L' and L! can be used to indicate three different pieces, where I intend to reserve ! for the strongest pieces. E.g. L=Lance, L' = Left Chariot, L! = Lion. Even in variants that do not strictly need it (such as Dai) it would allow much more natural ID assignment, giving the N back to the Knight, using L! for Lion and, say, I', S', B', C', F', O' and W for Iron, Stone, Angry Boar, Cat Sword, Flying Dragon, Violent Ox and Evil Wolf.H.G.Muller (talk) 10:32, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

text: BTW, it is nice that the WinBoard notition is mentioned in the article, but isn't it in a completely wrong section now? I would say it belongs in the section about game notation. I also think that calling it 'westernized' is wrong; the Standard Algebraic Notation used by WinBoard originated in continental Europe. It is in fact the TSA notation which uses a westernized form of Japanese board coordinates (replacing the digits written as kanji by letters). H.G.Muller (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; I shall move it. Double sharp (talk) 03:49, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually it seems to have been done already, so never mind. Double sharp (talk) 07:06, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winboard piece IDs 

message: In the context of the Chess WikiProject, this surely is "low". In the context of a hypothetical Shogi WikiProject, this variant would at least deserve "Mid" as the most-played of the lot. (I suppose one can argue about tori and wa, but they have nothing like the history of chu.) Perhaps tenjiku would deserve it too as having had a Western cult following for a while, until it was given up due to a mistaken reconstruction of the rules rendering the game probably a forced win for Sente. Double sharp (talk) 14:45, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance rating 

message: I've been struggling to get through the Chushogi Renmei's site, but here are their given readings for the piece names (which I should not have gotten wrong: I can at least read kana competently).
*Pawn: hohei, fuhyō, fu. Promotes to gold general, but here read と金 tokin. (Is this special name a spilling over from standard shogi?)
*Go-between: chūnin. Promotes to drunk elephant.
*Ferocious leopard: mōhyō. Promotes to bishop, but here read chorokaku.
*Copper general: dōshō. Promotes to side mover.
*Silver general: ginshō. Promotes to vertical mover.
*Gold general: kinshō. Promotes to rook, but here read ginbisha.
*Blind tiger: mōko, mekura. Promotes to flying stag.
*Drunk elephant: suizō. Promotes to prince.
*Prince: taishi. King: ōshō, gyokushō.
*Kirin: kirin. Promotes to lion.
*Phoenix: hōō. Promotes to queen.
*Lance: kyōsha, yari. Promotes to white horse.
*Reverse chariot: hensha. Promotes to whale.
*Vertical mover: shugyō. Promotes to flying ox.
*Side mover: ōgyō. Promotes to free boar.
*Flying stag: hiroku.
*White horse: hakuku.
*Whale: keigei, geigei.
*Flying ox: higyū.
*Free boar: honcho.
*Rook: hisha. Promotes to dragon king.
*Dragon king: ryūō. Promotes to soaring eagle.
*Soaring eagle: hijū.
*Bishop: kakugyō. Promotes to dragon horse.
*Dragon horse: ryūma. Promotes to horned falcon.
*Horned falcon: kakuō.
*Queen: hon'ō, honnō.
*Lion: shishi.
Additionally, they abbreviate the blind tiger as 盲 instead of 虎, and the drunk elephant as 酔 instead of 象. Double sharp (talk) 15:35, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readings of piece names 

message: It strikes me that pedagogically (for a chess variant player), the best way to describe the lion is "knight, dabbaba, alfil, or doublemove king". The reason is simple. If you treat it simply as a doublemove king that cannot be blocked on its first step, then it becomes legal to pass a turn when it is surrounded by friendly pieces or the edge of the board, which it isn't. The turn-passing is a separate thing. (You cannot pass your first turn!) Double sharp (talk) 06:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the lion move 

message: (A reply to an edit summary by OneWeirdDude.) It is possible that a player simply has no legal moves. Because the king's safety is not an issue, this must be because moves are totally blocked. One way of doing this is to advance pawns and go-betweens into the promotion zone and declining to promote them, creating a box that you can cram your king into as well as some stepping or ranging pieces. (For example: Black king 1a, rook 2a, bishop 3a, go-between 4a, pawns 1b, 2b, 3b, 4b; White king 6a, kirin 6b. Black to move.) Unlikely? Yes. But a rule set cannot be complete unless it deals with all possible scenarios. So, what is the ruling here? The historical sources do not say anything about such a case: presumably such ad hoc situations, like the recursively applied lion-capturing rules, would be argued about when they came about in reality. (Black could argue that it must be a draw, because the game cannot continue, but her king cannot be captured; White could argue that he should win, as the straightforward rule in chu shogi evolved into the current rule in shogi where a checkmated or stalemated player loses.) The only definite source for this is The Chess Variant Pages, which simply says "This makes stalemate non-existent in real games, and if there ever has been a rule for it, it is no longer known. For definiteness we can assume that stalemate is a win." This acknowledges the aforementioned pathological possibility, while simultaneously noting that it is not really a relevant concern, but puts a ruling on it anyway: if you are stalemated, you lose. Double sharp (talk) 19:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stalemate in chu shogi 

message: Is the Okazaki rule named after him? It seems highly plausible, but I struggle to comprehend the sources. Double sharp (talk) 03:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fumiaki Okazaki 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Who is Colin Adams and why should we care? Just asking for the purpose of the wiki; I think he was originally my suggestion. OneWeirdDude (talk) 03:06, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colin Adams 

message: I would dearly love to see a proper translation of this page from the Japanese Chu Shogi Association explaining many hard cases in the rules! Double sharp (talk) 14:38, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A translation of this source would be nice