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This page is written by the game's inventor, Dans Niemmann.

Warui-shogi

Warui-shogi is a strategy board game for 2 players. It is designed by NobuKenko (me), who was inspired by Shōgi and tried to make a Chess.com version of it.

Warui-shogi is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king (royal king), one mann (non-royal king), one chariot (rook), one bishop, two ferzes, two dabbabas, and eight soldiers. Black moves first, followed by White. The game is won by checkmating, or stalemating the opponent's king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.

Setup

The game is played on a square board of eight rows (called ranks) and eight columns (called files). The pieces are set out as shown in the photo.

Thus, from the player's first rank, from left to right, there're: Dabbaba, Ferz, (blank), Mann, King, (blank), Ferz, Dabbaba. On the second rank, the player's Bishop is placed above the left-side Ferz, and the player's Chariot is placed above the right-side Ferz. Eight Soldiers are placed on the third rank.

Pieces

1. Dabbaba

The Dabbaba jumps exactly 2 squares orthogonally. It's the only piece that can jump over other pieces.

2. Ferz

The Ferz moves and captures 1 square diagonally.

3. Chariot (Rook)

The Chariot act as a chess Rook, moving and capturing any square orthogonally.

4. Bishop

The Bishop act as a chess Bishop, moving and capturing any square diagonally.

5. King

The King moves and captures 1 square in any direction.

6. Mann (Commoner)

The Mann act as the King, but it can be captured.

7. Soldier


The Soldier moves and captures 1 square forward.

Rules

1. Promotion

When a Soldier reaches the furthest rank, it immediately promotes to a Mann.

2. Drop

When a piece got captured, instead of removing it from the play, put it on the capturing player's bank.

When a promoted Soldier got captured, it demoted to its normal form.

On any turn, instead of moving a piece on the board, a player may select a piece in his/her bank and place it on any empty point.

Soldiers can't be dropped on the furthest rank.

3. Game result

The first player who checkmate or stalemate the opponent first win the game.

If there's a position in the game that repeated 3 times, the game ends in a draw.

If both players can't make any progress (no capture and no Soldier pushed) in 50 moves (100 plies), the game ends in a draw.



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By Dans Niemmann.

Last revised by Dans Niemmann.


Web page created: 2024-09-19. Web page last updated: 2024-09-19