Minishogi

Two players play on a board ruled into a grid of five ranks (rows) by five files (columns).

Each player begins with a set of 6 wedge-shaped pieces; these are: Their movements are identical to those of their namesakes in standard shogi.

If the same position (with the same side to move and same pieces in hand) occurs for the fourth time, the game ends and the final result is a loss for the player that made the very first move in the game (this is different from regular shogi, where such a scenario would result in a draw).

Due to minishogi being smaller, it can play a much stronger game than on the standard board size.

Several tournaments in which such programs can enter to compete against each other are organized yearly, often associated with scientific conferences.

There are several free strong minishogi engines that can be used with the WinBoard interface, which support both XBoard protocol and USI.