Tori shogi

How Tori shogi is played

Tori shogi is shogi of birds on a board of seven by seven squares. Captured pieces change sides and come back from the hand, as in Shogi. The goal is to checkmate the opposing phoenix: to attack it so that no move can save it. An attacked phoenix is in check, and no move may leave your own phoenix attacked.

The board

Seven by seven squares; each side’s promotion zone is the two ranks farthest from it. On the first rank stand a quail, a pheasant, a crane, the phoenix, a crane, a pheasant and a quail, the falcon in front of the phoenix, and the swallows on the third rank with one more in front of them. The two odd swallows face each other. The side that moves first is called sente, the other gote.

The pieces

The phoenix steps one square in any direction. The falcon steps one square in any direction but straight back. The crane steps one square forward, back or diagonally, not sideways. The pheasant jumps to the second square straight ahead, over anything, or steps one square diagonally back. The left quail slides forward and diagonally back to the right any number of squares and steps one square diagonally back to the left; the right quail is its mirror image. The swallow steps one square forward and captures the same way. A piece captures by moving onto an enemy piece.

Promotion

Only the falcon and the swallow promote, and they must, on any move into, within or out of the zone. The falcon becomes the eagle: it slides diagonally forward and straight back, steps forward and sideways, and goes one or two squares diagonally back. The swallow becomes the goose, which jumps to the second square diagonally forward or straight back. A piece dropped in the zone promotes on its next move.

Drops

A captured piece joins your hand, unpromoted, and plays for you; a quail stays a left or a right quail. Instead of moving, you may drop it on any empty square. A swallow may not be dropped on the last rank, nor on a file where you already have two unpromoted swallows, and a dropped swallow may not give checkmate. A swallow that moves may give mate, and so may any other dropped piece.

Winning

Checkmate wins, and a side without a legal move loses too. A move may not bring about the same position (the board, the hands and the side to move) for the third time: the side repeating must play something else, and in a series of checks it is the checking side. So the game never ends in a draw. There is no impasse.

Handicaps

As the Western sources give them: the stronger player takes gote, plays without the left quail, the falcon, the falcon and the left quail, or the falcon and both quails, and moves first. The bot can give them, or you can (the setup’s "Handicap"). A Japanese table also gives them by the players’ difference in grade.

Other readings

Most sources, among them a Japanese text that cites the 1828 book, forbid the third occurrence of a position. Some count four, and Fairy-Stockfish and PyChess let the fourth occurrence lose for the side that brings it about. This app plays what most sources give.

The story

Japan (Edo) · first printed in 1828

When and where

Tori shogi is known from a book printed in 1828, Tori shōgi zukai (Tori shogi explained with diagrams), by Toyota Yasuchika, who signed it as a pupil of the late Ōhashi Sōei, the ninth Meijin. Tradition credits Sōei himself with the game, but no document says so. A Western account dates its invention to 1799; no other source confirms the year.

How it changed

It is shogi on seven by seven squares in which every piece is a bird: the phoenix as the king, a falcon, two cranes, two pheasants, a left and a right quail and eight swallows. Captured pieces come back as drops, as in today’s shogi. Whether it grew out of small shogi or, as was said from about 1920, out of wa shogi is disputed; the 1828 book explains its pieces through small shogi.

Today

A second edition of 1833, under the name Toyota Genryū, added games and handicaps, but the game stayed rare in Japan. Sets were sold in England from the late 1980s, and its players met at tournaments in London and Royston. Today it is played online, on PyChess among other places.

Did you know?

The piece called the phoenix in English is the peng, a giant bird of Chinese myth. The falcon promotes to an eagle and the swallow to a wild goose, and the two quails mirror each other, so their pieces are marked left and right.

Original piece names

hō (鵬, the phoenix) · taka (鷹, the falcon; it becomes the eagle, kumataka 鵰) · tsuru (鶴, the crane) · kiji (雉, the pheasant) · hidari uzura, migi uzura (鶉, the left and right quail) · tsubame (燕, the swallow; it becomes the goose, kari 鴈)

Sources: Wikipedia · Jean-Louis Cazaux · NDL Search, Tori shōgi zukai · PyChess

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