|
SHOGI
Jumaat, 12 April 2013 • 3:19 PG • 0 comments
Shogi (将棋 shōgi, generals' chess) , also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player strategy board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, makruk, shatranj and xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family
of chess variants native to Japan. Shōgi means general's (shō 将) board game (gi 棋).
The earliest predecessor of the game, chaturanga, originated in India in the 6th century, and sometime in
the 10th to 12th centuries Chinese chess, xiangqi, was brought to Japan where it spawned a number of variants.
Shogi in its present form was played as early as the 16th century, while a
direct ancestor without the "drop rule" was recorded from 1210 in a
historical document Nichūreki, which is an edited copy of Shōchūrekiand Kaichūreki from the late Heian period (c. 1120).
According to The Chess Variant Pages
Perhaps the enduring popularity of Shogi can be attributed to its 'drop
rule'; it was the first chess variant wherein captured pieces could be returned
to the board to be used as one's own. David Pritchard credits the drop rule to the practice
of 16th century mercenaries who switched loyalties when captured—no doubt as an
alternative to execution.
GAME EQUIPMENT
A traditional shōgi-ban (shogi
board) displaying a set ofkoma (pieces). The pieces on the far side
are turned to show their promoted values. The stands on either side arekomadai used
to hold captured pieces. The board itself is raised for the comfort of players
seated on tatami mats (background), and is hollowed underneath
to produce a pleasing sound when the pieces are moved.
Two players, Sente 先手 (Black) and Gote 後手 (White), play on a board
composed of rectangles in a grid of 9 ranks (rows) by 9 files(columns).
The rectangles are undifferentiated by marking or color. The board is almost
always made of rectangles; square boards are very uncommon.
Each player has a set of 20 wedge-shaped
pieces of slightly different sizes. Except for the kings, opposing pieces are
differentiated only by orientation, not by marking or color. From largest to
smallest (most to least powerful), the pieces are:
·
1 king
·
1 rook
·
1 bishop
·
2
gold generals
·
2
silver generals
·
2 knights
·
2 lances
·
9 pawns
Several of these names were chosen to
correspond to their rough equivalents in international chess, and not as
literal translations of the Japanese names.
Each piece has its name written on its
surface in the form of two kanji (Chinese characters
used in Japanese), usually in black ink. On the reverse side of each piece,
other than the king and gold general, are one or two other characters, in
amateur sets often in a different color (usually red); this side is turned face
up during play to indicate that the piece has been promoted. The pieces of the
two players do not differ in color, but instead each faces forward, toward the
opposing side. This shows who controls the piece during play.
It has been claimed that the Japanese
characters have deterred people from learning shogi. This has led to "Westernized" or
"international" pieces, which replace the characters with iconic
symbols. However, partially because the traditional pieces are already iconic
by size, with more powerful pieces being larger, most Western players soon
learn to recognize them, and Westernized pieces have never become popular.
Bilingual pieces with both Japanese characters and English captions have been
developed.
Following is a table of the pieces with their
Japanese representations and English equivalents. The abbreviations are used
for game notation and often to refer to the pieces in speech in Japanese.
 |
lovelies
 MESSAGE BOARD
 BLOG ARCHIVE; |
