Talk:Shogi variant

Old talk
To truly dimensionalize the shogi game you need to put ANOTHER board of the same size (9x9) over or under the original game itself. Also the original rules need to be kept in place. [This is what has been done at rules for 2 boards]. This gives those who think it is to difficult to play on a 3-D board, a chance to try it out.--Paul 21:07, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I found Ko shogi (19x19, played on a go ban) on the Japanese wikipedia. I would like to add this here but it may take some time (hopefully soon). Thanks kwami for opining my eyes to Jp: wiki. --JTTyler 06:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

From an editor: I have been (since Sep 05) working to improve the quality of the articles featured here. The content included in some of these articles is massive! As such, I have taken a 20/80 approach, putting 20% of my time to improving 80% of the articles. This is best accomplished by starting with the smallest articles and working up. I am currently (Feb 06) working on tenjiku shogi. This means placing taikyoku at the bottom of my to-do list. After this, I will begin to include new articles as part of this WikiProject to include articles that exsest in jp:wikipedia but not in en:wikipedia. I may also reformat this page at that time as needed to best present the informitive articles linked from here. This will include a separate catogoised list and short discription of games curently listed as “see also” as well as other matereal avalable on resources, hystory, players, themes, stratagy, et al. Anyone who has read thrue many of the chess, chess variant, and go articles on Wikipedia know how exaustive this matereal is and I feel that shogi is no less important. This may take some time of course, I do have a life, but the 2MB of text contributed by kwami and I in the past 6 months is a good start.

For those who wonder about my experience, I have played all but the large board variants but am only a novice. I wuld like to play them all eventually, even if only agenst a computer or on a paper board with paper pieces. Because this is Wikipedia, anyone with any experience level and referenced information may contribute. Especily helpful will be information on stratagy and tactics, or beginning game and end game, not just for shogi variants but in support for the main shogi aritcle itself. Also helpful wil be information translated from Japanese sorces not avalable on the internet. Note too that this information itself can be translated into other Wikipedias sutch as the Icelandic article linked from here. JTTyler 23:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

discrepancies
I asked about the discrepancies in promotion on the Japanese Tai shogi talk page, and got this reponse,


 * 諸象戯図式や象棋六種之図式から正確なところを知ることができるように思われますが、両方とも江戸時代の書籍で、現在入手可能かどうか不明です.
 * 『象棋六種之図式』を複写した『雑藝叢書』がありますが、絶版になっています（図書館では閲覧できる可能性あり）. 『ものと人間の文化史 23 将棋』(ISBN 4588202316) は現在でも入手可能なので、こちらの記述を参考にするのがよいかもしれません. --Tamago915 2005年10月4日 (火) 14:13 (UTC)

A rough translation is,
 * I'd think that you could get accurate info from 諸象戯図式 Various Elephant Game Plans or 象棋六種之図式 Plans for 6 Elephant Chess variants, but both are Edo-era publications, and it's not clear where you could get them today.
 * 象棋六種之図式 is reproduced in 雑藝叢書 Misc. Arts Library, but this is out of print. (You might be able to find it at a library.) Because ものと人間の文化史 23 将棋 A Cultural History of People and Things, 23 Shogi (ISBN 4588202316) can still be obtained today, it might be a good idea to check its description.

kwami 21:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Tiny variants
Hi, should anything be done about making pages for Nana shogi, Gufuu Shogi, and Bushi Shogi? OneWeirdDude (talk) 21:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Bushi Shogi really isn't shogi at all. TensaiKashou (talk) 20:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, neither is hasami shogi, when you think about it. OneWeirdDude (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to leave this link hear for now. I may use it in the future. http://www.kolumbus.fi/geodun/gufuu/gufuu.htm JTTyler 65.80.178.227 (talk) 05:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've seen programs that play Nana among other variants, so I'll make the page myself soon if you don't first. In an attempt to save you any trouble, I'll try to save frequently on the wiki page.  OneWeirdDude (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

List of shogi pieces
I think we should make a counterpart to the list of shogi pieces (将棋類の駒の一覧) on en:wiki, including diagrams. TensaiKashou (talk) 19:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

For the diehards who want to play
SDIN has chu and dai shogi, but if you are out for the fire and blood of tenjiku, you can get it here (no computer opponent, though, so you'll have to find a willing partner). They have all the historical variants that we mention, except ko. Double sharp (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * (Although SDIN is beatable by even a patzer like me at the highest level, provided I remember not to hang pieces with wild abandon, so good players may want to look at HaChu by H.G.Muller.) Double sharp (talk) 15:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Classification of the historical variants

 * 1) Heian (8×8), Heian dai (13×13): historical early versions of sho and dai
 * 2) Sho (9×9), chu (12×12), dai (15×15), tenjiku (16×16): the ones with pretty well-known rules, and with promotion zones
 * 3) Dai-dai (17×17), maka-dai-dai (19×19), tai (25×25): the ones with murky rules (without a definitive version), and with promotion by capture
 * 4) Taikyoku (36×36): almost unrelated with its different moves, like the ones below
 * 5) Tori (7×7)
 * 6) Wa (11×11)
 * 7) Ko (19×19)
 * 8) The modern game (9×9).

Classes 2, 5, 6, and 8 IMHO are the most worth playing, though maka-dai-dai in class 3 and ko in class 7 both contain interesting ideas that should be rescued in a smaller game. Double sharp (talk) 16:00, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. If you've only got time for two, stick to chu and tenjiku. Those two share a lot and it is actually possible to memorise the initial setup and rules for them. (Dai is similar, but really? It's so boring. Chu is the evolution of dai.) Double sharp (talk) 15:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

And when I'm not being an Edo-period shogi otaku, I would classify them as follows: It is still my theory that after dai was invented as the larger and more prestigious version of sho, chu was invented as a more practical version of dai, but the prestige of the original dai kept it alive for a while longer together with chu. (Meanwhile perhaps some of these reactionaries would have created the even larger variants of dai-dai, maka-dai-dai, and tai, which ironically prove that bigger is often not better.) Chu then would have become dominant, and would never have been seriously threatened until drops were added to sho. Meanwhile, some Buddhist monks, seeking to reintroduce the sho-chu-dai trichotomy with a better large game, would have invented tenjiku, which now has the right idea (increase the power of the pieces for a huge board). Despite playtesting (which would explain the tactically quiet setup), serious players would have ignored this variant, perhaps because dai left a bad taste in the mouth of utter boredom, and they didn't read the rules far enough to see the move of the fire demon. Meanwhile, some Edo-period otakus would have created taikyoku just to show off every piece that had ever been invented (and having no sense of how pieces work together...), and some others would have more practically invented wa (though the pieces are IMHO too weak), though it seems to have been mostly ignored. Finally we come to tori (a small variant that had no impact because modern shogi and chu shogi together had a duopoly by now). As for ko, it is an interesting but mishandled idea: the fantastic powers of some of the pieces was the right way to go, but tenjiku was a better embodiment of these multiple-movers and shooters as it was more backward-compatible with chu. Double sharp (talk) 16:37, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Chu (12×12), the only one that has some history that is preserved to us. The most played of the historical variants.
 * 2) Tenjiku (16×16), the one that should have had that history but doesn't. Probably the second-most played of the historical variants (you can find recorded games in Colin Adams' book, although it has some rule misinterpretations courtesy of TSA). I have not found recorded games of tori and wa.
 * 3) Dai (15×15) and sho (9×9), the not-that-great first versions of chu and modern shogi (but hey, we have to start somewhere!)
 * 4) Tori (7×7) and wa (11×11), the animal-themed practical ones. They however have rather weak, asymmetrical pieces and do not really fit well in the small-to-large sequence that the inventors of the large variants obviously intended (sho, chu, dai, tenjiku, dai-dai, maka-dai-dai, tai, taikyoku).
 * 5) The impractical ones that nobody ever seriously played (dai-dai, maka-dai-dai, ko, tai, taikyoku)

A Japanese source
http://www.chushogi-renmei.com/koramu/EX1.htm gives a review of the pieces used in Japanese. (Though they appear to use modernised rules for maka-dai-dai, insofar as they can be said to exist.) Double sharp (talk) 19:44, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is, in fact, part of a series of articles on the history of shogi from the website of the Japanese Chu Shogi Association, which may be read here in Japanese. Double sharp (talk) 14:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Ko Shogi
In the section about large variants, it says The most recent large board variant is ko shogi which is very confusing, as the table right above it says it's invented in the late 17 century, and the other entry in that table, Okisaki shogi, was invented in 1996. Which postdates the invention of Ko shogi by 3 centuries in my book. Either the statement is plain wrong, the table is wrong, or this statement needs further explanation. 62.216.5.216 (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2022 (UTC)


 * If a variant is so old that its inventor is unclear or unknown, it's categorized into historical variant, otherwise modern variant. Ko shogi was invented by Ogyū_Sorai and has not much to do with any historical variants. Therefore, it is considered to be a modern variant. However, since Ko shogi has lots of unique features, it would be better not to think it is a shogi variant. SmartAlice (talk) 05:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Uke-shogi
Hi, is uke-shogi noteworthy? I found it on a list of card games, definitely shogi-related, if only perhaps remote. OneWeirdDude (talk) 02:58, 12 June 2022 (UTC)