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Rules of Mad Queen Shogi
 King |
 Queen |
 Rook |
 Bishop |
 Knight |
 Pawn |
Created by Larry L. Smith, Mad Queen Shogi is played like Chess with the addition of drop rules based on Shogi. Whenever a piece is captured, it changes sides and is held in hand by the player who has captured it. When a captured piece is a promoted Pawn, it turns back into a Pawn. On a subsequent turn, a player may drop a captured piece onto an empty space. A Pawn may never be dropped on a player's last rank, but all other pieces may be dropped on any empty space. A player can have no more than eight Pawns on the board at once. As long as a player has eight Pawns on the board, he cannot drop another Pawn on the board.
How to Move
If JavaScript is enabled, you may move pieces with the mouse. This will work for any move that can be handled as the move of a single piece. This includes normal moves, drops, castling, and en passant captures. Promotions must be written in two parts, first the Pawn move, then the promotion. So these must be entered manually. Here is what you need to know to enter moves manually. Game Courier uses simple algebraic notation. You must specify every move unambiguously, because Game Courier does not rely on context to interpret a move. Notation such as Ng3 or BxN will not work. Shortcuts are allowed only for types of moves that the preset has been programmed to handle automatically. In this game, castling is handled as a King move, en passant as a normal Pawn move, and all captures as normal moves.
Normal Moves
The White pieces are K,Q,R,B,N,P. The Black ones are k,q,r,b,n,p. To make a move, enter it in the form field labeled Moves. The board will then automatically show the new position if the move is legal. It will otherwise just report that your move is illegal and ask you to go back and try again.
To make a move as in regular chess, just enter the notation for the moving piece, leave a one-space gap, then write the starting square and, after a hyphen, the destination square. For example, you would enter k a3-a2 to move the Black King from a3 to a2. You simply enter k a3-a2 even if the moving King makes a capture. Captured pieces are automatically placed offboard, and you should not enter any additional notation for moving it off. Note that the hyphen is used for captures as well as non-capturing moves. The letter x is never used to designate captures.
En Passant
When a Pawn captures en passant, just enter the Pawn's move. Game Courier will handle the en passant capture automatically, and you should not include this in the notation yourself. For instance, p f4-g3 is all you would need to enter to capture a Pawn that had just moved to g4.
Castling
When you castle, just move the King, for example by writing K e1-g1. The Rook move will then be made automatically.
Pawn Promotions
To promote a Pawn, enter the Pawn move followed by a semi-colon; next leave a one-space gap; then name the piece to which the Pawn promotes and, after a hyphen, the promotion square. For instance, P e7-e8; R-e8 makes a Pawn promote to a Rook on e8.
Drops
To drop a piece, enter the piece label, an asterisk, and its destination. For example, P*b7 drops a White Pawn onto square b7. You should never try to drop a piece by moving it from its offboard location. Offboard coordinates are for internal use only and play no part in the notation for the game.
Resigning
To resign, enter the word resign.
How to Move Pieces
Full Algebraic Notation
Algebraic notation identifies each space by a coordinate that begins with its file label and ends with its rank label. On the Chess board, files go up and down from one player to the other, and ranks go from left to right. In most games, files are represented by letters, and ranks are represented by numbers, but there is no fixed rule requiring this for all games, and some games, such as Shogi, reverse this convention. If you look at the diagram, you will usually see the file labels going from left to right and the file labels going up and down. And if you hover your mouse over a space, you will normally see the name of the coordinate appear in a tooltip.
It is not uncommon to see algebraic notation being used for Chess, but it is often in an abbreviated format that requires you to know both the rules of the game and the current position to know exactly which piece moves where. For example, the notation "Ne6" indicates that a Knight is moving to e6, but it doesn't indicate which Knight, and it doesn't specify where the Knight is coming from. To figure this out, you need to know how a Knight moves and which Knight on the board can make a legal move to e6.
Although rules may be programmed for individual games, Game Courier itself does not know the rules of any game, and it is unable to parse abbreviated algebraic notation. Therefore, it relies on full algebraic notation, which completely specifies the move without requiring any knowledge of the game's rules or the current position. The most usual type of full algebraic notation indicates the piece that is moving by its label, the space it is moving from, and the space it moving to. In Chess, a typical first move might be written as "P e2-e4". When you hover your mouse over a piece, you will normally see the piece label followed by the coordinate for the space, and when you hover it over an empty space, you will normally see the coordinate label. Including the piece label in your notation allows Game Courier to check that the piece you're moving is the right one, and it makes game notation easier to follow, but it is not mandatory.
You may promote a piece by including a promotion move after your regular move. A promotion move has a piece go directly to a coordinate. Here is an example: "p e7-e8; q-e8".
You may remove a piece from a space by adding an @ to the space or by omitting the destination coordinate. For example, both "@-e4" and "e4-" would remove the piece on "e4". This is useful for en passant when you are playing a game that does not handle this automatically. For example, "P d5-e6; e5-" removes the Pawn on e5 after a Pawn moves from d5 to e6.
You will not need to remove spaces for most games, but if you should need to, you can do this by omitting the first coordinate in a move. For example, "-e4" would remove e4 from the board. To add or return a space to the board, you may add an @ or any other piece to it.
Available Pieces
Pieces are represented by labels, usually using uppercase letters for White and lowercase letter for Black. When you enter a move or specify the starting position for a game, you should remember that piece labels are case-sensitive. Many piece sets are available for use with Game Courier, and this table shows you which pieces belong to the piece set you are currently using.
These pieces come from a set containing more pieces, but this preset has had the set of pieces reduced to those used in the game.
Credits
This preset uses the Galactic settings file for Mad Queen Shogi, which was made by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017
WWW Page Created: 15 August 2001
Kibbitzing Etiquette
Kibbitzing is the practice of commenting on a game you are not playing. In commenting on a game, please follow these rules of etiquette.
(1) If you notice that someone has made an illegal move, please mention it. Some Game Courier presets cannot enforce rules, but Game Courier does enable players to take back any previous move. Details on how to take back a move are provided in the User's Guide, linked to above the board.
(2) Unless otherwise specifically asked to, do not offer hints or suggestions to players on what moves they should make. In general, avoid coaching comments.
(3) Once a game is over, it should be alright to offer your analysis of the game and your specific comments on what moves players should have made. If some players don't want this, they may mention it in the Kibbitzing section, and you should honor this request by not commenting on the game.
(4) Be polite. At the appropriate time, offer any criticism you have in a constructive manner. Avoid heckling players for bad moves.
(5) Don't spam this space with irrelevant comments. If you have a comment about Game Courier, rather than about the specific game you're viewing, please post it on Game Courier's Index page to give it.