Games - Kyoto shogi

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	Games - Kyoto shogi

Kyoto shogi (京都将棋 kyōto shōgi "Kyoto chess") is a modern variant of shogi (Japanese chess). It was invented by Tamiya Katsuya c. 1976.

Rules of the game

Objective

The objective of the game is to capture your opponent's king.

Game equipment

Two players, Black and White (or 先手 sente and 後手 gote), play on a board ruled into a grid of 5 ranks (rows) by 5 files (columns). The squares are undifferentiated by marking or color.

Each player has a set of 5 wedge-shaped pieces, of slightly different sizes. From largest to smallest (most to least powerful) they are:

1 king
1 gold general
1 silver general
1 tokin
1 pawn

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 Japanese characters marked on its face. On the reverse side of each piece (other than kings and gold generals) are one or two other characters, often in a different color (commonly red instead of black); 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.

Listed here are the pieces of the game with their Japanese representation:

The names of the pieces (with the same pronunciations but different kanji) are puns in Japanese.

Setup

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Each side places his pieces in the positions shown below, pointing toward the opponent.

In the rank nearest the player:
* The king is placed in the center file.
* The gold general is placed in the adjacent files to the right of the king.
* The silver general is placed in the adjacent files to the left of the king.
* The tokin is placed in the left corner.
* The pawn is placed in the right corner.

That is, the first rank is |T|S|K|G|P|.

Game play

The players alternate making a move, with Black moving first. (The traditional terms 'black' and 'white' are used to differentiate the sides during discussion of the game, but are not literally descriptive.) A move consists of moving a single piece on the board and potentially promoting that piece, displacing (capturing) an opposing piece or dropping a captured piece onto an empty square of the board. 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 (meaning another piece controlled by the moving player).

Each piece on the game moves in a characteristic pattern. Pieces move either orthogonally (that is, forward, backward, left, or right, in the direction of one of the arms of a plus sign, +), or diagonally (in the direction of one of the arms of a multiplication sign, ×). The knight is an exception in that it does not move in a straight line.

A piece is allowed to move, capture or be dropped in a manner that will prevent it from moving on a subsequent turn. For example; a rook can move onto the furthest rank and become a pawn, unable to move.

The movement categories are:

Step movers

Some pieces move only one square at a time. (If a friendly piece occupies an adjacent square, the moving piece may not move in that direction; if an opposing piece is there, it may be displaced and captured.)

The step movers are the king, gold general, silver general, tokin and pawn.

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 pieces

The bishop, rook and lance 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

Unlike shogi, this game has no promotion zone. Every time a piece makes a move it must promote or revert to its unpromoted state. Promotion is effected by turning the piece over after it moves, revealing the name of its promoted rank.

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