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If you like multiplayer Shogi variants, you might enjoy my own Three Player Hex Shogi.

It's interesting to see the origins of this variant. It inspired me to
stick its name into a search engine and see what other websites there
were
on it. I found several others, including
http://www.answers.com/topic/yonin-shogi which linked to
http://www.answers.com/topic/sannin-shogi on a still-older three-player
hex Shogi. That led me to check whether Sannin Shogi had a page on this
site, which it doesn't, but Sankaku Shogi does. On checking that one I
saw that san was confirmed as meaning three - so it would seem that yo
rather that yon is the bit meaning four in Yonin. So... would the correct
translation of Chaturaji (four kings) into Japanese be... Yoo?

Charles,

Is this the same as the 3-player game that you seek:
http://www.chessvariants.org/shogivariants.dir/3-handed_shogi.html ?

- Sam

Edit: More links added.

To belatedly answer Charles Gilman's question about yo vs. yon: those lists of numbers in Japanese tend to gloss over a lot of things. Japanese actually has two full sets of numerals, one native and one originally borrowed from Chinese, but uses the same kanji for both (Japanese actually does this for a lot of things besides numbers: most kanji have both on-yomi, or Chinese readings, and kun-yomi, or Japanese readings, and may have more than one of each). The set used most commonly is the Sino-Japanese set: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu. In the modern language the native terms are more obscure (but do show up in certain restricted contexts, such as the 'tsu' counter and the first few counters for people) with the exception of 'yon' (4) and 'nana' (7), which are more or less interchangeable with the Sino-Japanese numerals when used stand-alone. In most kun-yomi compounds, though, the kanji meaning 4 appears as 'yo', sometimes doubling the following consonant (as in 'yottsu', 'four things'). I don't know the history of the language that well, but if I were to guess I'd say that 'yo' is the original form (or derived directly from the original form), and the '-n' was added just to the form that is used stand-alone and in compounds with on-yomi.

'Yon' is about as common as 'shi' (unlike most other numbers) because 'shi' is also an on-yomi for the kanji meaning 'die', and is therefore considered unlucky. This homophony was inherited when the kanji and their on-yomi were borrowed from Chinese, which has the same superstition about the number 4. Not sure why 'nana' is also an exception.

There is no kanji with the reading 'n'. All of them can function as a complete syllable. (Syllable-final 'n' in Japanese is sometimes referred to as 'syllabic N' but it really isn't, it just gets its own kana unlike the syllable-initial N, and makes the syllable long)

• If you checkmate another player, your team wins immediately.
• It is permitted to capture your partner's pieces (and use them as your own later on, same as if you are capturing opponent's pieces).
• Your partner is always across from you.
• Order of play is clockwise.
• It is not allowed to move into check, even checked from your partner.
• It is not allowed to put partner in check, even from your own pieces.
• If you put an opponent in check, it becomes their turn immediately (possibly skipping other turn).