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A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sun, Jan 21 05:21 PM UTC:

The original Unashogi is quite interesting, but has a fatal flaw. Because King drops are unrestricted, impasses are easily attained by dropping the King into the promotion zone, making draws very common, as most pieces have a forward bias to them making a King on the far side of the board very difficult to mate, especially if surrounded by friendly pieces.

I thought up with variant of Unashogi, called Unashogi II in this comment, which is the has the same rules as standard Shogi plus the following additional rules.

  • The board is initially empty and the players start with the usual 
  • A piece cannot capture or move into the promotion zone in any way unless the friendly King is on the board.
  • If the friendly King is in the hand, Pawns and Lances cannot be dropped on the last four ranks, and Knights cannot be dropped on the last five ranks.
    • This is a corollary of the restriction against dropping where you cannot move.
  • The King can only be dropped on the first three ranks.

Edit: This solves the problem of impasses, but allows for easy checkmates if the first player drops his King early.


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