A Game Courier Preset for Mortal Shogi
Rules of Mortal Shogi
Mortal Shogi is played like Shogi except for the rules concerning captures and promotions.
Captures
Whenever a Pawn is captured, it is not put in hand. Instead of this, it is removed from the game. Whenever any other piece is captured, it demotes to the next lowest ranking piece, following this order from highest to lowest: Dragon King, Dragon Horse, Rook, Bishop, Gold General, Silver General, Lance, Knight, Pawn. This replaces the rule in Shogi that promoted pieces demote back to their unpromoted forms. After demotion, a captured piece changes sides and is held in hand by the capturing player, who may drop it on a subsequent turn. The following table shows all pieces in order of rank.
 King |
 Dragon King |
 Dragon Horse |
 Rook |
 Bishop |
 Gold General |
 Silver General |
 Lance |
 Knight |
 Pawn |
Promotions
As in Shogi, certain pieces may promote by entering, exiting, or moving within the promotion zone, which is for each player the last three ranks from his own perspective. The pieces that may promote are the Pawn, Knight, Lance, Silver General, Bishop, and Rook. This is the same as in Shogi. As in Shogi, Bishops promote to Dragon Horses, and Rooks promote to Dragon Kings.
Unlike Shogi, Mortal Shogi does not distinguish between Tokins, promoted Lances, promoted Knights, and promoted Silver Generals. Instead, when any piece lower ranking than a Gold General has the opportunity to promote, it may promote to any higher ranking piece up to and including a Gold General, provided there are spaces remaining on the board that it could legally move to as the piece it promotes to. So, nothing may promote to a Lance once it reaches the last rank, and nothing may promote to a Knight once it reaches either of the last two ranks.
Dropping
Dropping rules are just the same as in Shogi. With certain restrictions, a piece may be dropped on any empty space. An obvious restriction on any drop is that the resulting position must be legal. A second restriction on each piece, though applicable to only a few, is that there must be spaces remaining on the board to which it could legally move. Thus, Pawns and Lances may not be dropped on the last rank, and Knights may not be dropped on either of the last two ranks. Finally, there are a couple more restrictions for dropping Pawns. First, a Pawn may not be dropped in any file that already has a Pawn belonging to the same side. Second, a Pawn drop may never be used to checkmate the enemy King.
Miscellaneous
As in Chess, the object is to checkmate the enemy King. Unlike Chess, Black moves first.
Pieces
A King can move one space in any direction, so long as it does not move into check, just as in Western Chess. It does not promote. The object of Shogi is to checkmate the enemy King.
A Rook moves exactly as in chess, i.e. any number of squares on a rank or a file. It may not leap over other pieces. It promotes to a Dragon King, which moves as a Rook or one space diagonally.
A Lance moves any number of squares, but only directly forward.
A Bishop moves exactly as in chess, i.e. any number of squares on a diagonal. It may not leap over other pieces. It promotes to a Dragon Horse, which moves as a Bishop or one space orthogonally.
A Gold General moves a single space in any direction except diagonally backwards. It does not promote.
A Silver General moves a single space straight ahead or diagonally.
A Knight leaps over pieces as in Western Chess, but it is limited to forward motion: it leaps forward two squares and over one square to the left or right.
A Pawn moves a single square forward at a time. It captures forward, just like it moves.
Special Notation
Since piece drops will come from an off-board area, they are handled simply by moving the piece from its off-board coordinate to an on-board coordinate.
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.
These pieces were designed by Fergus Duniho, based mainly on his Abstract pieces. The Silver General is represented by a crescent moon ☽, the alchemical symbol for silver. The Gold General is represented by a circle with a dot in the center ☉, the alchemical symbol for gold (and also the astrological symbol for the sun). Think of the silvery moon and the golden sun. Additionally, the Copper General, which is used in some Shogi variants, is represented by the alchemical symbol for copper ♀, which is also the symbol of Venus and the symbol meaning female.
Credits
This preset uses the Symbolic settings file for Mortal 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