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Greetings
Hello, おねがいします, onegaishimasu!
Learning to play Go, 囲碁, shogi, 将棋, and Stratego®. Like playing Scrabble®, Scrabble© Slam!® too. Games are one of the beautiful works of humanity. Kido, 棋道, the way of go.
Go interests me, in that it's still winnable to a degree by humans over computers. AlphaGo did not win every game, though it did win the match. ;( Especially, since Jeopardy!® fell to the AI's.
Zen games.
Learned of an interesting variation on multiplayer go games, Zengo. Where three people alternate sides in a two player Go game. Everybody tries to make the best move on their turn, each turn one plays a different side. You get to learn in a non-competitive zen way.
Zen games can be played with an odd number of people and even number of sides, like Zenchess. Or, an odd number of sides and even number of people, like Zentrichess. Two or three people can even play Zenscrabble.
Multiplayer board games.
Also interested in multiplayer variants of Go and chess. I think they add the metaphorical dimension of life where one has allies and non-allies, and switchable allies. And that there can only be one winner, and many losers.
Noncombatants in board games.
Since many board games are metaphors for war, in war civilians are an important element or unimportant. I had the idea of adding the non-combatant element to represent that non-combatants take the most casualties in warfare. Use black and white go stones on the board squares not occupied by game pieces to represent civilians. When the opponent moves on to a square with your civilian it is taken from the board.
Alternatively, take the stones whenever a piece moves there opponent or friendly to represent fratricide.
One could add the rule that if all your civilians are dead you lose. In scoring type games loss of your civilians counts against you and/or loss of opponent’s civilians counts against you too. For go, one could add two other colors of stones to represent civilian populations. Or a single color on the points to represent a universal civilian population.
This would make Zen games dark Zen?
Home made 9x9 goban, minishogiban, table floor board adaptor for table top game boards.
Made a 9x9 goban and mini shogiban on reverse side by use a Walnut Hollow© product called Basswood Country Rounds® large size. I used a grid print out from a spreadsheet program to place alignment dots with a pencil. Then lines with a permanent marker, a Sharpie®, and ruler to make grid lines, and coordinates. Hoshi points were made by using the hole in binder paper and pencil to outline a circle, then used the permanent marker over that. Next, sealed it with polyurethane spray in three coats. The shogi pieces are from Yellow Mountain Imports.
Round floor goban, which can be used to make other game table boards into floor boards
Turned a TV dinner stand into a round floor goban. Wrote the lines by a permanent marker, then sealed with spray polyurethane, cut the legs short, drilled and bolted a new pivoting point. The height is now 12 inches. Link for a round go printable board pdf file
My toddler daughter can use it as a table too!
Makes other table boards into floor boards like a 19x19 table goban, shogiban, or a Grand Chess board.
For the Grand Chess board, I made reversi pieces for 10x10 reversi by painting then gluing two wooden disks together, can also use the pieces to play 11x11 go, and international checkers.
Out of corner molding, I made Stratego® like pieces that I can put a label of the piece value on. That way it can be changed if a particular wood piece stain or grain pattern becomes associated with what the piece is. The natural color pieces are movable terrain barriers.
I also can add shogi or chess labels to the pieces to make for a Stratego® variant of chess or shogi, even Grand chess.
Home made 9x9 goban with 13x13 on obverse side by transferring laserjet printout.
Made a grid and coordinate marking in wordprocessor, then printed out reverse image on a laserjet printer. Make the lines heavy and the coordinates in bold to come out better. Used acetone to transfer image on to medium-density fiberboard, MDF. Then sealed with three coats of polyurethane. Also, printed out the roundgo pdf file and transfered it. The 9x9 board has the kanji for igo, and kido transfered on.
Learning Shogi Characters
It's not that hard. We all had to learn what one chess piece did from another. Same with the kanji characters. The way I did it was to make flash cards from this shogi instructions and the simplified Chinese characters from the printable shogi board below. I cut out the two characters simplified Chinese and cursive kanji taped them on one side of an index card, then cut out the movement and name and taped to the other side. After three days of study, had them memorized.
Learning to Play Go
A good free printable Go booklet, The Way to Go by Karl Baker, from the American Go Association and American Go Foundation.
Learning to Play Stratego®
Ed Collins' free website has lots of Stratego® information, rules, variations, and strategy tips **Jumbo took down this site :(
Free printable paper shogi, 将棋,go, 囲碁, HiveTM, and Stratego® like games Boards and Pieces pdf and others.
Go board you write your pieces on with idea how to make captures and subsequent moves into previous capture point.. By writing in nested stones and using a tick mark to mark captured.
A PDF of a Shogi board with traditional kanji pieces (simplified Chinese). Promoted
pieces red colored.
A PDF of a Shogi board with common orthodox chess style pieces. The pieces
show a letter representing the orthodox chess like piece and a diagramed movement
of the piece. Promoted pieces red colored.
Mini Amry Chess, Stratego® like game, board and pieces PDF
Cut out and play. Orthodox Chess and Stratego® like game, board and pieces PDF Set pieces in non standard locations to had to fog of war vibe. No checkmate, king has to be taken since hard to tell him from other pieces.
Cut out and play. HiveChess Hive(TM) like game, board and pieces Google Doc
Cut out and play. Invent your own game or use Hive(TM) rules http://www.gen42.com/downloads/rules/Hive_Carbon_English_Rules.pdf
for rules of the Pill Bug expansion http://www.gen42.com/hive-pillbug-carbon
Links to free turn based websites with go, shogi, minishogi, Stratego® like, Scrabble® like games
Links to two free online turn based sites where you can play go, and Stratego® like games, at both sites. Shogi and minishogi also at brainking. Scrabble® like game at it'syourturn.: