Ratings & Comments

I miscounted; I should have said C2. Or, perhaps, vC2sCC.

Looks like you fixed everything, save for the hand spaces of course, but I won't bother you on that too much until you are ready to test the solution.

I would at least like the ones for Hectochess and Seireigi. Ideally, the files should be placed in such a way so that I know which files go where.

You may include Chu Seireigi if you wish, but I am doing one last update to make it easier to defend against a Lion:

• Renaming Prancing Stag to Running Rabbit (fBfR), which promotes to Prancing Stag (fBsRvW)
• Strong Bear moving the same as Chu Shogi Drunk Elephant

I had your Jocly implementation play out several games, and even though it played rather poorly (for obvious reasons), it was clear that there needed to be more defense.

P. S. I'm surprised you changed the Whale's symbol to a trident. I guess it makes sense if you take into account Greek mythology. I think the whale tail symbol you used before would look more accurate, but it really comes down to personal preference here.

The author, Gerd Degens, has updated this page.

The author, Lev Grigoriev, has updated this page.

I think I've corrected the bugs you mentionned.

If HGM has the time and the possibility to add the parametrisation of the hand space in the drop model, of course I'll use it, but I don't know if it's that easy to do.

I can share a zip if you want, with these 3 compiled games (Hectochess/Seireigi/Chu Seireigi)?

That's a fair point.

Another option would be to allow the Aviaancas an ifA, and/or the Half-Ducks iffN (or iffN2).

Overall, though, I think your better bet would be to change the Giraffes' CC to C3.

With shuffle.

Thanks. Hopefully we can also upload your implementations of Hectochess and Seireigi to the site soon.

I have tested the new moves and will update you on bugs to be fixed. Here are the errors I found as of the writing of this comment.

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Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
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Whale is missing its backward slide

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps

For some reason Flying Swallows that are dropped from the hand (not the ones present initially) have their move reversed

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As for the trouble with the hand spaces, maybe ask H. G. Muller about that? He is the one who made the original model if I remember correctly. It shouldn't be that hard for him to figure something out.

As far as I can tell, you should only need a second column of hand spaces on each side, but of course, it's probably not as simple as I am making it out to be.

In that event, if I'm understanding this correctly, moving a Pawn to b7 should also block the Giraffe. In any event, changing the corner piece from Limping Queen shouldn't be the answer (I'd want to leave that move open as a possibility); you could just switch the Zerdinal and Aviaanca, for example, or have the Giraffe start in a different spot where it can't move to a place that threatens the King.

The Zecari is just a renamed Bisonrider, isn't it?

(There's nothing wrong with that; just checking.)

It looks like replacing the corner piece with Limping Queen allows white to do 1.c6 then 2.Ga10. Looks like I have to change it again.

If this Limping Queen is the one that I posted in PotD a few days ago, I'm sorry I missed it.

(I also don't see how the nature of the corner piece affects the above opening.)

The author, HaruN Y, has updated this page.

There's already an Interactive Diagram on the page but

This one is also with shuffle.

Most of the Movement/Promotion adjustments have been made. The only point I'm having trouble with is finding a way to extend the number of places for hands. I'd probably have to override the drop model, but I'm not sure I could do it quickly on my own. Anyway, for the time being, it's a good way to get familiar with the rules.

But with shuffle.

I mean trivial in checkmating.

@François Houdebert,

I saw your Jocly implementation for Chu Seireigi. It works much better than it used to.

I went through and tested everything, and here is a comprehensive list of all known errors that I found:

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Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
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Ram's-Head Soldier and Prancing Stag are not forced to promote when reaching the last rank (these pieces must promote on last rank)

Strong Bear (Starting and Promoted) still has its old move (should move one square diagonally or sideways)

Whale is missing its forward orthogonal step

Flying Swallow is not forced to promote when reaching the last two ranks (this piece must promote on last two ranks)

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps, Black Golden Bird is missing its (1,-2) leap from White's perspective

Kirin promotes to Lion (should promote to Bishop) and White Kirin moves has extra (2,2) leap in all directions (should move as in Chu Shogi)

Phoenix promotes to Queen (should promote to Rook)

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Board Setup Errors
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There currently aren't enough spaces in the hand to accommodate all the droppable piece types (there are 19 in total). You will need a second column of hand spaces on each side to account for this.

Black Running Leopard and Black Running Wolf are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup.

Why is the 'Heavenly Tetrarch' trivial?!

Oh, I had downloaded the zrf and looked at it on zillions, if it isn't clear in description, it should be made clear lol.

Good work pointing that out.

the description of Treacherous Fox needs an update

@SYG: "is it possible to perform a Bishop switch maneuver TWICE? ". The answer is in the short text: "The player would have four ways to do the adjustment, but he is only allowed to do it one time throughout the game".

It could have been made clearer, but it's not so difficult to find: locusts spawn in the square vacated by a moving king, or result from the demotion of a capturing Leo

Should I replace Heavenly Tetrarch with piece that won't be as trivial?

Nice to see a game with the Locust in it and it's a great idea too, well done.

It's not clear from the rules how the Locusts enter the game. 

Restart to shuffle Knaves and Diamonds.

The author, Piotr Smagacz, has updated this page.

Why didn't I tag this with Rules: Stalemating: Loss?

What if baring ends in stalemating?

As Gbtami realized it’s playable on Lishogi.

@Christine,

Thanks For including me in this discussion!

When I first saw this game, I didn't think much of it, since I was more focused on larger Shogi variants, especially Tenjiku Shogi. However, now I have a few games against Jocly under my belt, and wow, this game completely blew me away. It is an absolute joy to play, despite its size and complexity (which melts away after a couple games). However, it is not flawless.

The Lion-trading rules are a bit complex, and making the Lion contagious (Like Maka Dai Dai Shogi's Deva, Dark Spirit, and their promoted forms) would make the rule much simpler while also achieving the same effect. However, this isn't really much of a problem, and may in fact be the better choice.

The real problem that I have with this game is that modern "innovations" have made the game more complicated than it needs to be. The repetition rules are quite complex, so much so that most computer programs for Chu Shogi that I know don't implement them, which is a trait borrowed from Xiangqi. The King Baring rule is completely unnecessary, as it does not add anything to the game that the combined effects of the other rules do not achieve. There is no evidence that it existed in the Edo period, so I'm not sure why someone thought it would be a good idea to mention this.

However, despite these problems, Chu Shogi is still easily among the best games of its kind. If you like Chess variants, you should give it a try.

Chu Seireigi is an attempt to combine elements of Chu Shogi with the ruleset of modern Shogi. It also has the benefit of not needing any special rules to preserve its quality, fixing all the problems with the modern "innovations" for Chu Shogi that I mentioned above. Players are disincentivized from trading off the most powerful pieces in many cases because they would just go into the player's hands, making them even more dangerous. The repetition rule is simply that of Shogi (draw, except perpetual check loses), and the drops make King-baring extremely rare. However, this comes with the unfortunate downside of having to remove all the multi-move abilities from the game, as otherwise the balancing would be thrown off.

The Zerdinal has mating potential, and it might be useful to give a link to a pre-programmed checkmating applet for it. (E.g. in the Notes section.)

/membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/EGT.html?betza=ZB&name=zerdinal&img=zebrabishop

That also applies to the Half Duck, which does not have its own Piececlopaedia page where such a link can be found. There is no checkmating applet that can do crooked sliders like the Snake, but the non-lame sub-set FN easily forces checkmate, even on 16x16 boards. Forcing checkmate for a piece that has FR3 moves, such as the Tetrarch, is trivial (even on a quarter infinite board), and probably does not need an applet: the piece alone can drive the bare King to a corner.

I would avoid the use of yy in the move description of the Aviaanca, as this is really an undocumented feature of XBetza, to make recognition of some bent riders in the bracket notation possible as long as the latter is still implemented through pre-processing. It will be abandoned when the bracket notation will be parsed directly. Better use [W?AA].

The author, A. M. DeWitt, has updated this page.

Hi, sorry HaruN Y, I didn't notice you can click on them.

Alright, so it appears Charles Gilman talked about the Zerdinal and Tribune in 2008.

Aurelian Florea then used the Zerdinal, calling it 'Sangoma' in 'Grand Apothecary Chess-Modern' in 2021 and Bob Greenwade also used this piece, calling it 'Kuhani' in 'Short Sliders (and the Leapers Who Love Them)' in 2023.

As for the Tribune, unless there is a game from Charles he used it in, 'Camelopard Chess' could be the Tribune's first appearance in a game.

And for the Camelopard, 'Camelopard Chess' seems still to be the first game this piece has played in.

Oh, and thanks all for the info!!

I think the use of ‘leaping’ where the other pawns simply ‘move’ suggests that they do, in fact, leap (making your diagram accurate)

ZB appears in Grand Apothecary Chess-Modern

Nice to see a game with the Locust in it and it's a great idea too, well done.

This page should be ready. 

Hi @nelk114,

I've moved the piece movement descriptions to the Pieces section as recommended.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and reviews; they've truly made this page better.