Maka dai dai shogi
The three Edo-era sources are not congruent in their descriptions of the pieces not found in smaller games.
Apart from its size and number of pieces, the major difference from these smaller games is the "promotion by capture" rule.
Different sources often differ significantly in the moves attributed to the pieces, and the degree of contradiction (summarised below with the listing of most known alternative moves) is such that it is likely impossible to reconstruct the "true historical rules" with any degree of certainty, if there ever was such a thing.
It is not clear if the game was ever played much historically, as the few sets that were made seem to have been intended only for display.
Unlike standard shogi, pieces may not be dropped back into play after being captured.
(Sometimes the queen is called the "free king", a direct translation of its Japanese name.
The queen could also be abbreviated FK (for free king) and the kirin as Ky (for kylin).
(The traditional terms 'black' and 'white' are used to differentiate the sides during discussion of the game, though the pieces are all the same color.)
The kings, drunken elephants, blind tigers, ferocious leopards, reclining dragons, Chinese cocks, old monkeys, evil wolves, generals, angry boars, cat swords, coiled serpents, dark spirits, Devas, go betweens and pawns only move one square at a time.
The she-devil, wrestler, guardian of the Gods, Buddhist devil, violent ox, flying dragon and old rat can move along a limited number of free squares in certain directions.
The emperor, lion, lion dog, furious fiend, teaching king, Buddhist spirit, kirin, phoenix, donkey and knight jump, that is, they can move over any intervening piece, whether friend or foe.
The queen, dragon king, dragon horse, chariots, rook, bishop, side flier, movers and lance can move any number of squares along a straight line, limited by the edge of the board.
(Note that this situation is extremely theoretical anyway, because allowing both these powerful pieces to be captured at once would imply very poor play.
By default continuation legs can go into all directions, but can be restricted to a single line by a modifier 'v' ("vertical", interpreted relative to the piece's current position on its path).
The default modality of all legs is the ability to move and capture: other possibilities are specified explicitly.
U denotes the universal leaper, a piece which can jump to any square on the board except the one that it is on.
The wizard stork does not exist except as a promoted Chinese cock (left).
A player who captures the opponent's sole remaining king or prince wins the game.
In practice this rarely happens; a player will resign when loss is inevitable and the king will be taken on the opponent's next move (as in International Chess) because of the tradition that it is seen as an embarrassment to lose.
The very artificial situation of a smothered stalemate, where no moves are possible (even those that would expose the king), is not covered in the historical sources.
The method used in English-language texts to express shogi moves was established by George Hodges in 1976.
The only difference is in the setup, which places the opposing pieces close together and leaves the armies' rear flanks exposed, though Humby recommends that the teaching king be played as the weaker Western variant (as a queen), probably referring to the single alternative offered by Sean Evans' ShogiVar software, which is Queen plus 3-step King with full lion power, no longer believed to be the correct move by anyone.
In the hishigata setup, only one rank is left empty between the opposing armies.
The blind bear's move is changed to FsW (one square in any direction but directly forward or backward), making it consistent with the free bear (which moves as shown here with no forward diagonal jump).
The donkey loses its vertical stepping move and the knight has become a forward-only alfil.
Many other minor changes are present: for example, the angry boar is now frlW and the old rat is fWbF.
According to the German Chu Shogi Association, the average values of the pieces are (using the interpretations of The Shogi Association, e.g. the lion dog as only a three-square range mover with no lion power):[3] These average values do not take into account the special status of the king or prince as royal pieces, or the emperor as a disposable piece if other royals are present.
This is particularly significant for the hook mover and capricorn, which are the two most powerful pieces in the game, but "promote" to the weak gold general.
The first two are generally though not always in agreement, but the third differs in the case of most pieces which are not found in smaller shogi variants.
