How about a game of Japanese Chess, i.e. Shogi? Now playing Shogi4 — Page 55

I finally have a good chance of winning and you steal it from me! ;)

It would be nice if you kept playing, but if you really don't want to... You could try getting your generals up behind your pawns and advance your whole line forward so that you get rid of my promoted bishop. That could be risky, especially if I make good moves.

You may consider this cheating, but I'll offer a couple suggestions to help get you in a better position.

For starters, get your gold general in 3c. That will thwart my planned offense. Then move the pawn on dh that is currently under threat from my dragon horse (or whatever you call the promoted bishop) forward. Then move the pawns on 6d and 5d forward (in that order). There are some counter-attacks I will be able to make, but I haven't figured them all out yet and I'm pretty sure you can still pull it off. Once you have my bishop and your generals/pawns are preventing me from making an offense, you will be on fairly equal footing with me.

Hopefully that works and you want to try it, because I wouldn't mind finishing this game. ;)

Well, me resigning means you win, but I see that you want to win by checkmate.  I actually will not finish reading your post because I don't really want to cheat, as you mentioned.  But I will keep playing so you can win by mate.  But believe it or not, the one move you mentioned that I read to before stopping was my planned move were I to keep going.

G-3c

Yes, I always prefer to win by checkmate, but you do still have a chance to regain equal footing with me, which is partly why I want to keep going. Let's see if you figure it out without reading my post. :)

G-5i

N-8e

G-4i

S-5e

There you go. That's a better choice than my proposed moves and I see no way out for my dragon horse.

+B-4e

G-4d

I hope you weren't leaving your DH there just to give me a chance.  I do have it trapped, but I hope you were not trying to be merciful.

+B-3f

No, I wasn't trying to be merciful. I wanted to get my gold general close to my king and didn't realize how quickly you'd be able to corner my DH. I can't say I tried very hard to protect it though....

G-3e.  If you had not been so concerned about my evening things up, do you think you might have tried harder to protect your dragon horse?  I really don't want to capture him just because you were going easy on me.

+Bx5d

I looked back on the last few turns, and it doesn't look like there were any really advantageous moves to make. All of them were worse than this one, so moving my DH earlier wouldn't have helped me much.

I'm such an idiot.  I thought I had you cornered!

S-6c

The thing is, I probably could have pushed you for a few more moves and successfully hemmed you in.  Now I blew it!  Again!!!  Arg!!!!!!

I'm sorry about it (not really).

+B-4c

Nx7g+

Sx7g

P*5d

I guess I shouldn't have been so greedy. :P I could have escaped without a problem.

P-5f

G-5b.  I think have that sucker for real this time.  But it's been costly.  The game might even up a bit, but it still lies very much in your favor.  My position is crap.  You have more pieces to drop.  You still are set to win this game if you keep playing as well as you have.  At least I can enjoy losing if I still end up losing.  Before each move was depressing.

I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the game now, even if it still isn't going that well for you (other than the fact that my DH doesn't stand much of a chance now). If you slip up though, my DH will escape and then you'll be even worse off than before.

Px5e

Yes I know.  I can't afford to waste a single turn trying to recoup that silver.  Gx4c.  Yes, I am enjoying it better now.  I don't mean to be a complainer.  I don't mind losing, but losing so badly and due to such awful carelessness makes me prefer to just start over.  Knowing that I can lose but put up a fight makes a game much more enjoyable.  But don't give up on your offensive either.  You can pull off a victory without too much difficulty if you know what to do.

Oops, I moved your gold general to 6b instead of 5b, so I thought I had a better chance of escaping than I did. There wasn't a lot I could do anyway, so I'm OK with that.

S-6f

Yikes.  Now that I've accomplished my primary goal, I have no idea where to go from here.  Hmmm...R-8a.  We'll see if I can get anything done now.

Time for bed, my friend.  Have a good night.  Sorry if I disappointed you.

No, you didn't disappoint me, and assuming you're referring to the loss of my DH, something bad had to happen to me sometime....

L-8h