Games - Wa shogi

	Games - Wa shogi

Wa shogi (和将棋, wa shōgi, peaceful chess) is a large board variant of shogi (Japanese chess). In this game, all of the pieces are named after a type of animal.

Rules of the game

Objective

The objective of the game is to capture your opponent's crane 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 11 ranks (rows) by 11 files (columns). The squares are undifferentiated by marking or color.

Each player has a set of 27 wedge-shaped pieces, of slightly different sizes. From largest to smallest (most to least powerful) they are:

1 crane king
1 cloud eagle
1 flying falcon
1 swallow’s wings
1 treacherous fox
1 running rabbit
1 violent wolf
1 violent stag
1 flying goose
1 flying cock
1 strutting crow
1 swooping owl
1 blind dog
1 climbing monkey
1 liberated horse
1 oxcart
11 sparrow pawns

Each piece has its name in the form of two kanji marked on its face. On the reverse side of each piece (other than crane kings, cloud eagles and treacherous foxes) are two other characters, often in a different color (e.g., 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.

Setup

| style="width:34px" | || valign="top" | |}

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

In the rank nearest the player:
* The crane king is placed in the center file.
* The violent wolf is placed in the adjacent file to the left of the crane king.
* The violent stag is placed in the file to the right of the crane king.
* The flying goose is placed in the file to the left of the violent wolf.
* The flying cock is placed in the file to the right of the violent stag.
* The strutting crow is placed in the file to the left of the flying goose.
* The swooping owl is placed in the file to the right of the flying cock.
* The blind dog is placed in the file to the left of the strutting crow.
* The climbing monkey is placed in the file to the right of the swooping owl.
* The oxcart is placed in the corner file to the left of the blind dog.
* The liberated horse is placed in the corner file to the right of the climbing monkey.

That is, the first rank is |OC|BD|SC|FG|VW|CK|VS|FC|SO|CM|LH|.

In the second rank, each player places:
* The swallow’s wings in the same file as the crane king.
* The flying falcon in the same file as the blind dog.
* The cloud eagle in the same file as the climbing monkey.
In the third rank, each player places:
* The treacherous fox in the same file as the flying goose.
* The running rabbit in the same file as the flying cock.
* Nine sparrow pawns are placed in the remaining files.
In the forth rank, each player places:
* A sparrow pawn in the same file as the treacherous fox.
* A sparrow pawn in the same file as the running rabbit.

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 no longer literally descriptive.) A move consists of moving a single piece on the board and potentially promoting that piece or displacing (capturing) 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 (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, ×).

If an oxcart or sparrow pawn, which cannot retreat or move aside, advances across the board until it can no longer move, it must promote.

Many 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:

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Wa shogi ]

Searches on eBay

wa shogi