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How about a game of Japanese Chess, i.e. Shogi? Now playing Shogi4 — Page 35

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Gosh, I've got such an advantage, and it's still impossible to get to you! R-5c

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 (Edited)

EDIT: Hold on, I didn't want to do that.

I made a bad move, so I am changing it to C-4k while I still can.

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Lnx9jx8k#, which is technically checkmate.  I believe players continue till the king is actually captured, but it's a moot point.  Unless you really want to make the last two moves.

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Oh, he probably won't read this, but for Frink's sake I'll add, "ROAR!"

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I don't see any point in making the moves just because, so we'll move on. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't see that coming, because I could have avoided it for a while longer with little difficulty. :( Ah, well, it was a good game nonetheless.

So what's next, Ito Shogi or another game of Chu Shogi (I'm afraid I haven't yet made a mockup for Ito Shogi, however, because I've been pretty busy in the last couple weeks. I could probably get one finished tonight though, but we'd have to begin tomorrow).

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Same with me for Ito.  I want to play, but I haven't made an appropriate set.  We could just try the software and see how it plays.  It's too small a board, but with our amateur abilities at the game (I am honestly no good, in spite of being the inventor), it probably won't make a noticeable difference.  Or we could just wait till tomorrow and I could throw together a crummy set.

I really enjoyed Chu, but I have had so many games I wanted to try, and that took so long that I hesitate to play another game just yet.

I ask frequently, but I really want to be sure, am I too hard a player?  It gets discouraging to continually lose, and I have beaten you in almost every game.  I can be competitive, but I don't want to do so at the expense of your fun.  I can play easier, coach you through positions more, make deliberate (but subtle) mistakes, accept handicaps, whatever, just because I'd hate to lose such an enjoyable gaming partner.

I also am interested in your thoughts on Chu.  I already asked, but now at the end of the game, have you developed any new insights or opinions?  I personally learned that the lion is not as amazing as I expected (and I'm glad for that).  If he breaks through, he can wreak havoc.  But if a player has two rook-type pieces protecting two adjacent ranks (these pieces should be well defended of course), then the lion simply cannot safely cross.  You had a pretty good defense against my lion for a while.  There were several dangerous squares, and you had at least one rank covered.  I simply couldn't get through in spite of my far superior forces by that point.  It was difficult to figure out how to tear down your wall.

If you wanted, we could just play another small game.  Dobutsu shogi is very small and simple.  Nana shogi could be fun.  I hear Tori Shogi is a great game.  We have many options if you want to go for another faster game.  I don't think I'd want to go bigger than Chu ever.  I doubt I would have the patience for a larger game, except maybe in person where we could finish in a single day.  But Wa Shogi is 11x11, and is fun with or without drops (as historically it is unclear whether or not the game was designed with them in mind).  I leave the choice up to you.

Thanks for being a good playing partner and a good sport.  You let me know what you think.  I want to be accommodating in all aspects. :)

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darth_ender said:

Same with me for Ito.  I want to play, but I haven't made an appropriate set.  We could just try the software and see how it plays.  It's too small a board, but with our amateur abilities at the game (I am honestly no good, in spite of being the inventor), it probably won't make a noticeable difference.  Or we could just wait till tomorrow and I could throw together a crummy set.

I'm fine with whatever. I'll probably mock up a set tonight regardless of whether or not we end up playing it.

I really enjoyed Chu, but I have had so many games I wanted to try, and that took so long that I hesitate to play another game just yet.

Agreed. It might be nice to break up long games with short ones in between.

I ask frequently, but I really want to be sure, am I too hard a player?  It gets discouraging to continually lose, and I have beaten you in almost every game.  I can be competitive, but I don't want to do so at the expense of your fun.  I can play easier, coach you through positions more, make deliberate (but subtle) mistakes, accept handicaps, whatever, just because I'd hate to lose such an enjoyable gaming partner.

I don't think you're too hard of a player. I've played chess games in which I was checkmated in less than five moves (granted, I made some stupid moves) before, so I don't feel that you're so good I don't get any chance to make moves I'm not being forced to make. It's only when the game gets to that point that I really start to get frustrated, because then it's really just the other player playing him/herself since I can't make attacks/counter-attacks/set up defenses of my own. I definitely don't find that with you, unless I'm playing really badly myself.

It might be helpful to play a game (probably of normal Shogi) in which we tell each other the reasoning behind our moves as we play, while you critique my strategies and reasoning or point out things I've overlooked. It obviously won't be the same as a regular Shogi game because we'll be spoiling our strategies by telling them to the other person and it will probably take longer, due to the extra time taken in writing posts. However, it will allow me to learn to think about my moves more and also give me the chance to pick up more strategy and gain a better awareness of the board as a whole, since I tend to concentrate on one or two areas at a time.

I also am interested in your thoughts on Chu.  I already asked, but now at the end of the game, have you developed any new insights or opinions?  I personally learned that the lion is not as amazing as I expected (and I'm glad for that).  If he breaks through, he can wreak havoc.  But if a player has two rook-type pieces protecting two adjacent ranks (these pieces should be well defended of course), then the lion simply cannot safely cross.  You had a pretty good defense against my lion for a while.  There were several dangerous squares, and you had at least one rank covered.  I simply couldn't get through in spite of my far superior forces by that point.  It was difficult to figure out how to tear down your wall.

I think Chu Shogi is a lot of fun. Your lion didn't end up proving too devastating, though of course it deprived me of my free king, and if I remember correctly, my lion, and of course delivered checkmate. I found that I focused just about all my attention on getting rid of your lion, which may or may not have been a good idea. I made some silly moves which cost me in the end, and I think that made it a lot harder to play. The problem is that when you lose a lot of your long-range pieces, it becomes vastly more difficult to play, as not only does it take forever to cross the board, but it is difficult to trap one's opponent's long-range pieces. I enjoyed creating fairly elaborate defenses while simultaneously trying to capture your lion, but the drawback of focusing so much on defense is that I wasn't able to make many offensive moves against any piece besides your lion (thus I think I was even more defensive this game than normal).

That about sums up my thoughts.

If you wanted, we could just play another small game.  Dobutsu shogi is very small and simple.  Nana shogi could be fun.  I hear Tori Shogi is a great game.  We have many options if you want to go for another faster game.  I don't think I'd want to go bigger than Chu ever.  I doubt I would have the patience for a larger game, except maybe in person where we could finish in a single day.  But Wa Shogi is 11x11, and is fun with or without drops (as historically it is unclear whether or not the game was designed with them in mind).  I leave the choice up to you.

I don't feel like making decisions right now, so I'm going to throw the choices back at you and get you to pick one. :)

Thanks for being a good playing partner and a good sport.  You let me know what you think.  I want to be accommodating in all aspects. :)

 No problem, I enjoy playing despite losing. I don't want you to be too accommodating, because then you won't enjoy the game as much. But I already stated my thoughts above, so I won't repeat myself here.

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 (Edited)

I've completed a mock-up of Ito Shogi in Microsoft Excel. The advantage of using excel is that it's easy as pie to insert extra rows into the board, or copy and paste to create multiple variations of it on the same spreadsheet. So whenever you finish your mock-up, I'll be ready to play. :)

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Why didn't I think of that?!  Brilliant!  I'll put together a mockup pronto.  I suggest you write the piece moves and their opposite faces with their moves off to the side as a reminder.  And as before, we should note when a piece is promoting and to what, so that we can keep each other on track.  I'd like to start the game with 22 cells (six cells between us).  We can also try a 23 cell game.  I also would hope to try a few other alternatives: possible different or additional pieces (I've been tempted to add a lion to the game, and I want to change the knight, but I'm not sure how best to do so yet).  Any ideas you have are extremely welcome.

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darth_ender said:

Why didn't I think of that?!  Brilliant!  I'll put together a mockup pronto.  I suggest you write the piece moves and their opposite faces with their moves off to the side as a reminder.  And as before, we should note when a piece is promoting and to what, so that we can keep each other on track.  I'd like to start the game with 22 cells (six cells between us).  

I already have it set up like that! :)

We can also try a 23 cell game.  I also would hope to try a few other alternatives: possible different or additional pieces (I've been tempted to add a lion to the game, and I want to change the knight, but I'm not sure how best to do so yet).  Any ideas you have are extremely welcome.

 I'm sure the ideas will come once we start playing. Meanwhile, I don't have any. It won't be too hard to add pieces and whatnot, but I'm not too enthusiastic about a lion unless you plan on changing the way it moves. Keep in mind that we are playing on a small board, and a piece that can jump over other pieces, and move up to three squares both forwards and backwards (if you go with "two squares diagonally equals three squares forward and backward in Ito Shogi") would be very destructive. Perhaps a piece like the lion in that it could capture twice (but never move more than two squares), but I would suggest such a piece wouldn't be able to switch direction in a turn or jump over other pieces.

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I'm pretty busy, and though it's a simple game, I might not have time to make many moves for a while.  I don't even know what constitutes a good first move, so I'll just say IG-14 (going by the the numbers on the left column.

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I may not be understanding the rules correctly, so I want to make sure I know how the jumps work. I thought iron generals could move forward one or two squares, provided there was no piece blocking them. However, you jumped over your pawn. Can you explain how that works, or let me know if you just made a mistake?

My move is N-9

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Let me clarify the logic behind every move.  Orthogonal forward or backward moves are exactly as they would be on a 2D board.  Diagonal moves are translated into jumping moves.  An iron general moves orthogonally or diagonally forward in Dai Shogi.  The step forward is simply translated to a step forward.  But diagonally forward is translating into a jump to the second square.  Bishop moves then translate into jumping moves, skipping every other square, but needing the actual squares they "land on" to remain unobstructed.  Make sense?

Here is a link to the pdf I made years ago.  It has all color pictures, so it's easier to see what the moves are than on chessvariants.org.

http://www.4shared.com/office/0Zc6CMdLce/Ito_Shogi.html

The knight moves to the third square because a knight move may be best interpreted as a step forward, followed by a step diagonally forward.  Translated to 1D, that means a step forward, then a jump two squares, or a total jump of three squares.

The point of my piece layout was to allow four different pieces to make the first move.  But I already foresee a significant problem: once a first piece has moved, it blocks the square that many others would potentially move to, thus limiting the options for the second move.  I already am unhappy that I didn't think of this when I first designed the game, and I believe I would need to create gaps between some or all the pieces, change the layout, or allow the weaker faces (the face all the pieces show at the start of the game) allow more options for retreat.

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I get it now.

What if the order of pieces went as follows?:

King

Ramshead Soldier

Gold General

(space)

(space)

Silver Cannon

Lance

(space)

Goose

Knight

Iron General

Pawn

Let me know what you think. This allows for any piece except for the king to move on the first turn. After the first move is made, the moves will still be limited, but not as much.

EDIT: One problem with this, though, is that you end up with eight extra squares. That might increase the game length, but then again, the increased mobility at the beginning might make up for it.

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I honestly doubt the board size will much much different in game length.  Several of the pieces are long range, and the option for drops would allow quick crossing of the board and infiltration of enemy territory.  So your setup might be great!  I still suggest five or six spaces between armies.  I also wonder if it would actually be more interesting to allow the stronger faces of some pieces to be present first, allowing retrat and making players a little more hesitant to make the first capture, knowing that the weaker face will then be shown.  Just a thought.  I like your setup and I'm willing to try that out and see if it works for starters.

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Note that I added the gold general, so when you make a mock-up, make sure you put it in there. :) If you agree with having it in there, what should it promote to?

Assuming we're starting over, I'll make the first move of SC-7.

EDIT: Pardon me, I'm starting on the wrong side of the board! SC-22 is what I meant.