Sorry. Very busy day at work. But I'm back. N-5b+. But I don't really want this to be another short game, so I think I want to give you your move back and suggest you make another.
RicOlie_2 said:
darth_ender said:
No worries buddy. Out of curiosity, how old are you?
I'm fourteen.
I kind of gather that you are in high school, and if so, I'm impressed by your maturity.
Awww, thanks :D
I mean it :)
Anyway, sounds like a plan. I'm glad you're open to these variants and are willing to try this again. I'm not as familiar with this as regular shogi, so I don't have much strategy to offer.
I'll do my best. N-4d
G-2b
From what I've seen, the knight seems to be a far more valuable piece in the early game then in regular Shogi. I think one of my biggest problems with the small variants will be using my normally weaker pieces effectively and not worrying so much about the bishop and rook.
You know, I'm learning the same thing as we go. The knight can be kind of devastating against the other pieces in such close quarters when used properly.
S-5e
No worries buddy. Out of curiosity, how old are you? I kind of gather that you are in high school, and if so, I'm impressed by your maturity. Anyway, sounds like a plan. I'm glad you're open to these variants and are willing to try this again. I'm not as familiar with this as regular shogi, so I don't have much strategy to offer. I'll do my best. N-4d
I knew right away that I shouldn't have made that move, but I didn't think it was fair to take it back after I'd already posted it. *sigh* You might get me this time with this compromised position. Pxc6
Kb8
Yeah, I think at that point the game was already over, and I just let you have an extra couple of turns. R-6e+ mate.
Since that wasn't as engaging as you were probably hoping, we can play it again. Or if you prefer, we can play mini shogi, the 5x5 game. It's almost exactly the same, only a smaller board, no knight, and the promotion zone is only the last rank. It's a similar challenge, so you might want to just move on and try that one. However, if you want a better experience with Judkins, I'm definitely okay with that as well.
It's no problem. I just don't have much time, so I always hope I can put in a move in my limited moments. Bxd5
PS Sorry for giving you such a hard time. :)
Ah, I see. I see now that I forgot to mention where the promotion zone is. Let me give you a pointer for future reference. Notice that on most shogi boards there are four dots at the intersections of the grid lines. Those dots represent the promotion zone. If you pass the dots, you're in the zone.
Rx6d
Rx6e+ mate. Therefore I suggest you take your move back. Though analyzing the board, my little mistake might work out far better than I'd anticipated.
JEDIT: Take your time. I've got to get going for a bit. You might be able to pull out of it. I'm not sure. In any case, normally the game does not end so quickly. I thought I was done for. Generally more drops end up involved.
DuracellEnergizer said:
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001) - 5.8/10
I wouldn't have gone any higher than 5.46 on this one, myself.
I thought that would be your next move. After I made mine, I realized I shouldn't have. But I didn't want to edit my post and take it back because I thought that would be unfair. You may have beaten me already :( Anyway, here is my reply. N-5c
Not intending to lecture. Quite frankly, I'd love to see you more on the offense, and a smaller game offers the first player better opportunities as long as he maintains the initiative. I'm just letting you know that since it's your first game, you might think, "Oh, this is a simple, short game." Well, it is simple and short, but not as simple or short as a newbie might think. I think you'll enjoy it. :)
S-4b
I suspect not too many are reading this thread, but it's fun for me. Playing against Ric has reminded me of my love of shogi and its variants. Too bad some of the software created to play several variants does not work on 64 bit operating systems. I'm going to try Virtual Box to install XP, then put on some cool old software.
I should take the time to describe some shogi variants. Chess has been a relatively static game. It has indeed evolved, but really if you look at what is presumed to be the original game and what our game is now, there is not a whole lot of difference. I encourage you to read the wiki page on the history of chess, which I won't bother linking to at the moment. Basically the pawns move exactly the same minus the option for a two step first move (and with that loss goes en passant), the king moves the same minus the castling special move, the queen is the weakest of pieces, moving one space diagonally, and the bishops move one diagonally or one straight ahead. Knights are identical, and so are rooks, minus the castling move. Otherwise, the game is pretty much the same, with only two pieces substantially altered. Many variants have sprung up over the years, but have never caught on. But in Japan where a variant of that ancient chess mutated into shogi, that game then spawned a surprising number of popular variants, several larger, several smaller, but each interesting and creative.
I will probably write about more every so often, but for now I'll mention some small variants.
Judkins shogi - related very closely to Mini shogi, only slightly larger and including an additional piece, it is a simple, fast variant that gives each player only a single pawn and is otherwise comprised of pieces. Yet in spite of the odd and open setup, it is no trivial game. Games can last for several turns. It is faster paced than regular shogi, and obviously shorter, but it's a nice, light game when one just wants to get right into the action.
Mini shogi - Very similar to the above game, but smaller board and minus the knight. It's a good game, perhaps slightly more enjoyable than Judkins simply because of positioning, but it's difficult to compare such similar games. It's nice to just try both and see their slight differences and merits.
Goro goro shogi - I've never actually played this game. On a 5x6 board, it's set up for immediate pawn exchanges and drops. It has no rook, bishop, or knight, so all the pieces are short range--probably better for such a small board. I'm interested to see how it plays out.
Kyoto Shogi - This 5x5 game is the most challenging of all the small shogi variants, in my opinion. Each piece other than the king promotes, but not upon reaching a promotion zone. Each move simply reverses the face of each piece. For instance, you start with several pieces, including a pawn. When you move it once, it immediately promotes to a rook. But once you move it again, it turns back into a pawn. This makes it truly difficult for me to plan for moves, because once I put a piece in a strategic place, it turns into something different and possibly less useful. I'd have to move it again to make it do what I originally wanted. So you really have to be familiar with both faces of each face and really try to anticipate the effects of each move far more. Drops are free, in that you can drop a piece anywhere without any restrictions, even dropping a piece where it can no longer move, and you can drop it with either face up. I struggled to try to enjoy this against a computer opponent that could easily remember the opposite faces of each piece, but I imagine I'll fare much better against a human and actually might like the game a bit more.
Micro shogi (sometimes called 5 minute Poppy shogi)- Now this is both challenging and fun. At 4x5, it truly is a tiny game, yet it is amazingly complex for its size. Its pieces alternately promote and demote like the kyoto shogi, but not every move. Rather they promote and demote when the piece captures. This allows you to position your pieces without them always changing. Plus, the promotions and demotions seem to be more logical, keeping powerful pieces together, such as the gold general and rook. So once your piece turns to its lesser value, it doesn't necessarily become near-worthless, like the pawn/rook of Kyoto shogi. This is probably my favorite of the small variants.
That's all I'll cover for now. There are many more, but it took me a while just to make this post, so I'll do the rest in a separate post.
I will cover some more small variants very soon, and then I'll move on to larger variants.
Drat! Still no reply from Warbler! Maybe I have him on the run... ;)
Though the game should be faster and easier, don't take it too lightly. It's more complex to win at this game than you might realize
B-3c
Sorry I haven't responded. Internet quit working at my house for some reason. I'm at work right now, but I'm not even sure it will work when I get home. I'm on a busier floor than yesterday, so this might be my only response today, assuming my Net still doesn't work when I get home.
G-2b
I'm finally returning to reading Star Wars novels after a long time. I am currently reading the original Han Solo Trilogy by Brian Daley. Not too far yet, but what I've read I really like. He has interesting prose, and tells a good story while he's at it.
I'm home now. Hope you've had a good day.
Pxf6
Alright I'm home. We can start a game of Judkins shogi whenever you want. You can obviously play that with your BCM program. The rules are exactly like regular shogi, with only the following differences:
1) Obviously the board is smaller
2) Obviously there are fewer pieces, and they are set up as shown in the game
Otherwise, there are no differences, including the pawn drop rules. Hope to hear from you soon to try out a game. You can go first.
DuracellEnergizer said:
^I doubt her name would have been Padmé back then, though ;-)
Hmm ... that reminds me of something I've been pondering over for awhile ...
"Padmé" wasn't even supposed to be her real name even back when TPM was released, was it? "Padmé" was just an alias she was using while in disguise, with "Amidala" being her real name. After all, she was called "Queen Amidala" not "Queen Padmé", and members of royalty are always addressed by their given names, not their family ones. That her real name is and always was "Padmé" is a retcon from AOTC.
In hindsight, this makes Padmé look even stupider than usual. If she's trying to disguise herself as one of her own handmaidens in TPM, then why is she going around using her real name? It'd be like Clark Kent going out into public in his Superman outfit while still identifying himself as "Clark".
Interestingly, Amidala was actually the cover name initially, as she was described in TPM as Padme Naberrie. Later it appears that the Amidala part got attached to her name instead, but I guess the in-universe explanation is that it was her royal name that she simply later came to go by all the time.
So I've been playing simultaneous games of chess and shogi on this site, as I'm sure you've all noticed. My chess partner isn't very interested in trying shogi, and my shogi partner loves it far more than chess. I have to say that I love both games. Chess to me has such a beautiful balance that I am amazed. So many ranging pieces can be utilized together to create such amazing ballet-like combinations, it just astounds me. And though many don't realize it (since they don't play shogi), the finite number of pieces forces combinations and sacrifices to be done with care.
On the other hand, I really love shogi. Instead of great symmetry, it is extremely forward-directed. The pieces are substantially weaker, making for a slower opening game. But once armies begin to clash, it gets so exciting and difficult to anticipate. Players make sacrifices with less concern, because sometimess those exchanges, though for a weaker piece, gain a useful move not available to a stronger piece (a gold general for a knight, for instance). The difficulty of anticipating a player's possible drops makes the game so exciting, and yet a single mistake can turn the game around drastically.
Bottom line: players may advocate for one game or the other, but I can't help but love both games tremendously.
Sounds good. I guess Judkin's is on the original software you've been using, right? We can start that tonight, if you like. We'll try those not available on that software later.
Hey, seriously you did well. if you'd dropped instead of moving the king, it might have been the twenty you'd predicted. In any case, I hope you've been reading up on the other variants I've suggested. I think they could be fun and quick. I won't be able to play while at work (unless we can find something similar to assist my visualization), but I think they will be fun. We'll just have to wait till evening. Did you get that other software working correctly?
Yeah, good game to you. Sorry for my errors again, but I'm glad you understand what I meant in spite of those mistakes. I really enjoyed the game, though I was frustrated at how long it took to mate you. Learn from my mistake. Attack from the side. I had several pieces set to attack you, i.e. rook, bishop, knight, and pieces ready to drop, but you had a night, gold, bishop, king, pawns, and lance set up well to defend against my advances. Even though your king had little room to manuever, you had several key squares extremely well defended, and you had pieces to drop as well. In shogi, almost all the pieces are like forward facing pikement. You played very well, better than you probably realize.
Yeah, I fixed it now. I think you see what I meant. Read the last couple of posts I did, in case you missed something.