Piececlopedia: Lion

Historical notes

Movement

• the lion can move directly to a green square, capturing or not.
• the lion can move directly to any red square, leaping over intervening pieces if necessary, capturing or not.
• the lion can capture on a green square and return to its starting square in the same move. Such a capture is called igui.
• the lion can move to a green square and return to its starting square in the same move, effectively passing.
• the lion can capture on a green square, and then either move to any adjacent green or red square, capturing or not. Thus the lion can capture two pieces in one turn.

Remark

1. If your opponent's lion is at least two squares from your own lion and is protected by one of his own pieces, then it is illegal to capture his lion with your lion.
2. If your lion is captured by a non-lion piece, it is illegal to capture your opponent's lion on the following turn.
3. The exception to part one is as follows: if the two lions are two squares apart, and there is an enemy piece in between them that is not a go-between or a pawn, then it is legal to use your lion to capture the enemy piece and the enemy lion in the same turn.

The above rules are designed to make lion trades difficult, thus making it very likely that the lions will remain in the game until the very end. These rules do not appear in dai shogi and larger variants however, and thus should not be considered intrinsic properties of the lion.

The lion is an extremely powerful piece. In chu shogi, it is easily the most powerful piece on the board, much stronger than the free king, which has the powers of a chess queen.