Jeremy Good wrote on Tue, Dec 23, 2014 01:39 PM UTC:
I probably should have emailed you before I posted this. I apologize if so.
Perhaps it wouldn't give any extra advantage to White. Perhaps you're somehow right and it would give White some sort of advantage - that would be interesting. Demonstrate.
Yes of course I assumed the shogi pawns would only move one step at a time.
By giving it nine ranks, we give it the same number of ranks as in a 9 x 9 Shogi game where three lines separate the pawns. There's at least a bit of reason to my madness here...
If, on the other hand, you have four ranks between the pawns then it creates a certain asymmetry in pawn domination of ranks where the second player can not always directly meet the opponent's pawn on its fourth rank. In 9 x 9 Shogi, there is a middle rank that neither side can easily foray into....
Well, it's just a suggestion. I'm sure the 10 x 10 version of Elven Shogi would play out just fine and if that's the one to go with as standard, you're the boss in the matter and I defer to your judgment.
Reviewing the wikipedia Shogi Variants, I see no 10 x 9 Shogi version (and I can't think of any chess variant that is such a shape either but I don't think this apparent absence means that such a shape is inferior in any way to just about any other shape) so you may be right that my suggestion is unique. I do see a contemporary 10 x 10, like yours - Okisaki Shogi but can't easily locate the rules for it and can't see any but the vaguest notion of a setup. Some places they say it has ten pawns and others 11. Apparently, Okisaki means queen and this variant is a western hybrid that, like yours, implements a queen. Yours looks more interesting though.
I probably should have emailed you before I posted this. I apologize if so.
Perhaps it wouldn't give any extra advantage to White. Perhaps you're somehow right and it would give White some sort of advantage - that would be interesting. Demonstrate.
Yes of course I assumed the shogi pawns would only move one step at a time.
By giving it nine ranks, we give it the same number of ranks as in a 9 x 9 Shogi game where three lines separate the pawns. There's at least a bit of reason to my madness here...
If, on the other hand, you have four ranks between the pawns then it creates a certain asymmetry in pawn domination of ranks where the second player can not always directly meet the opponent's pawn on its fourth rank. In 9 x 9 Shogi, there is a middle rank that neither side can easily foray into....
Well, it's just a suggestion. I'm sure the 10 x 10 version of Elven Shogi would play out just fine and if that's the one to go with as standard, you're the boss in the matter and I defer to your judgment.
Reviewing the wikipedia Shogi Variants, I see no 10 x 9 Shogi version (and I can't think of any chess variant that is such a shape either but I don't think this apparent absence means that such a shape is inferior in any way to just about any other shape) so you may be right that my suggestion is unique. I do see a contemporary 10 x 10, like yours - Okisaki Shogi but can't easily locate the rules for it and can't see any but the vaguest notion of a setup. Some places they say it has ten pawns and others 11. Apparently, Okisaki means queen and this variant is a western hybrid that, like yours, implements a queen. Yours looks more interesting though.