Shogi (Japanese Chess)

Setup

• Two players, a board of 9×9 squares and 20 pieces each. In a physical set both sides use the same pieces; the direction a wedge-shaped piece points shows who owns it.
• Fill the three ranks nearest you. The back rank runs lance, knight, silver general, gold general, king, gold, silver, knight, lance.
• On the second rank, the bishop goes on the second file from your left and the rook on the second file from your right. The third rank holds nine pawns.
• The player who moves first is called sente (Black); the other is gote (White). Here the first player to sit down plays Black in the first game, and the sides swap after each game.

How to play

• On your turn, either move one piece on the board or drop one piece from your hand. You may not pass.
• King: one square in any direction. Rook: any number of squares straight up, down, left or right. Bishop: any number of squares diagonally. Neither the rook nor the bishop can jump over a piece.
• Gold general: one square in any direction except diagonally backwards. Silver general: one square diagonally in any direction, or one square straight forward.
• Knight: two squares forward and one to the side, jumping over anything in between. It is the only piece that jumps, and it can only go forward. Lance: any number of squares straight forward. Pawn: one square straight forward — and unlike in chess, it captures the same way.
• Move onto a square held by an opposing piece to capture it. It goes into your hand, turned back to its unpromoted side.
• The far three ranks are the promotion zone. When a move starts or ends there, you may flip the piece to promote it. A promoted rook (dragon) also steps one square diagonally; a promoted bishop (horse) also steps one square orthogonally. A silver, knight, lance or pawn promotes to move like a gold. The king and gold never promote.
• Promotion is optional, except that a pawn or lance reaching the last rank, or a knight reaching the last two ranks, must promote, because otherwise it would have no move.
• A dropped piece may go on any empty square, always unpromoted. You may not drop a piece where it could never move, drop a pawn on a file that already holds one of your unpromoted pawns (nifu), or drop a pawn to give immediate checkmate (uchifuzume). Dropping any other piece for mate is fine.
• You may never leave your own king where it could be captured. In check, you must move the king, capture the checking piece, or block.

Winning

• Checkmate the opposing king and you win. A player with no legal move also loses, and either player may give up.
• If the same position — with the same pieces in hand and the same player to move — appears four times, the game is drawn by repetition (sennichite) and replayed.
• The exception: if one player reached that repetition by giving check on every move, that player loses.
• There is no move limit by default. A table can set one, and the game is then drawn when it runs out.

House rules