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This page is written by the game's inventor, Gary Gifford.

Shatranjian Shogi

Shatranjian Shogi, (c) July 2006 by Gary K. Gifford This game is based on Shatranj and a few extra pieces of old. It includes the drop principle seen in Shogi. The setup bears a slight resemblance to Xianqi. Additional information regarding creation of this game appears in the notes.

Setup

As in the above diagram.

Pieces

1st Row:
King - Moves as a Western Orthodox King.
Ferz - Moves 1 space diagonal
Elephant - As in Shatranj. Leaps over 1 space diagonally to land on second space.
Knight - As in Western chess.
Rook - As in Western Chess

2nd Row:
War Machine - Leaps over 1 space orthogonally, to land on second space.
Wazir - Moves 1 space orthogonally

3rd Row
Pawns - no 2 move option, no pawn en passant.  Otherwise move and capture like Western pawn.  Pawns can only be dropped on a file which has no pawns of either color, i.e., completely pawnless.

P A W N   P R O M O T I O N

Pawns can promote when:

  (a) moving from [or capturing from] the 6th rank onto the 7th rank. But promotion in this case is optional.  The pawn need not promote yet.
  (b) moving from [or capturing from] the 7th rank onto the 8th rank. But promotion in this case is optional.  The pawn need not promote yet.
  (c) moving from [or capturing from] the 8th rank onto the 9th rank.  Promotion in this case is mandatory.

Promotion is to any piece except King.  And only pawns promote.

Promoted pawns, when captured, retain their promotion value.

Pawns can never promote on the turn they are dropped.  They must move or capture to promote.

Rules

As from piece descriptions above, plus - as in Shogi, a captured piece becomes part of your army and can be dropped back into play.  You may not drop a Western pawn on the 9th rank.  You may not drop a pawn on a file that has a pawn already on it (regardless of color).


******   UNLIKE IN SHOGI ****** 

(a) You may not drop a pawn on a file that has a pawn already on it (regardless of color).
(b) Because of the western Pawn captures (diagonally) double-pawns, triple-pawns, etc. are allowed.
(c) You can drop a pawn to deliver checkmate; as long as the file is free of any other pawns.
(d) Promoted pawns retain their promoted status when captured.

Notes

A link to the pre-set is: Shatranjian Shogi ====================================================================== A few comments about Shatranian Shogi. While playing Shatranj in CV Tournament II I had the desire to create a modified version of the game. However, friend and game-inventor Joe Joyce created his well-received Modern Shatranj soon to be followed by Great and Grand Shatranj variants before my ideas saw the light of day. Though I created Shatranj of Troy, and Shatranj Darwinian I still felt an on-going need to create a Shatranj variant close to the original game, yet different enough from Joe's Modern Shatranj. Finally, on July 30th, this game came into focus. It had the original Shatranj pieces and what seemed to be logical additions. With short-range pieces it included Shogi drops, which seem very appropriate. I trust it will be an enjoyable game. One that is easy to play, yet will be found to be challenging for even the most gifted of Chess and Shogi masters. A special thanks to Jeremy Good for his help with the pre-set and for a discussion that lead to modifiction of the pawn-rules on 8-11-06 which occurred during our playing of this game. Note: Shatranjian Dragon Shogi is a closely related game in which pawns promote to Gryphon Heads (move like Kings or Bishops) or to Dragon Heads (move like Knights or Kings). When captured these promoted pieces turn back into pawns. Shatranjian Dragon Shogi Pre-set Shatranjian Dragon Shogi Rules

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By Gary K. Gifford.
Web page created: 2006-07-31. Web page last updated: 2006-07-31