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Hasami Shogi Opening Position
Alternate Names
Hasami shogi may be translated to English as "Intercepting Chess" or "Sandwiching Chess".
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
In Japan, this game is often played at intersections on a quarter of the Go board or on a Shyogi board with Shyogi pawns. A 9x9 square grid will work quite well with the counters played on the cells. Eighteen each of black and white counters are also required to play.
History
The game titled Hasami Shogi is, in reality, two separate and quite distinct games of which both originate from Japan. They are probably both derived from the game of Shyogi.
Objective
A player wins the game when they have five counters in an orthogonal or diagonal row with all counters composing the row outside of their two home ranks.
Play
A counter may move any number of unoccupied squares orthogonally (the move of the Rook in Chess). Also, a counter may jump orthogonally over another counter, of either team, to land on a vacant square beside. The opponent’s counter is not captured in this method, however and there are no multiple jumps in one turn. Thus, on your turn you may move a single counter orthogonally any distance or you may jump, but not both.
An opponent’s counters are captured and removed from the board by custodianship of two counters in rank or file on opposite sides of it. Any number of opposing counters may be captured in custodianship by two counters so long as they are all in the same rank or file with no spaces between them (multiple capture custodianship) . Also, a counter positioned at any of the four corners of the board that becomes blocked from moving by opposing counters is also captured in a sort of “right-angle custodianship”.
A counter may, however, move safely into a position between two enemy counters without being captured. A player captures only if they create the custodian capture position during their turn.
Variations
Note that there are two slightly different games popular in Japan with the name Hasami Shogi. The other version plays with all of the same rules described above, but the objective differs. In this variation the objective is to capture all but one (or sometimes all but four) of the opponent’s counters. It is more akin to games such as Mak-yek, Petteia and Latrunculi, or Games of the Tafl Family. Both versions, however, may be played in a single game as a sort of “double or nothing”. Simply continue the game after the winner has achieved five-in-a-row with a new objective. For reference, I will refer to the version of the game with the objective of row formation as Row Hasami Shogi and the version of the game with capture as the objective as Fight Hasami Shogi. Be aware, however, that these distinctions are particular to this writing.
Some versions of Row Hasami Shogi do not allow a win to a player forming a diagonal row of counters: a victory is only achieved with an orthogonal row with all composing counters off of the two home ranks.
All of the following variations may apply to both Row Hasami Shogi and Fight Hasami Shogi. The game is so variable that two players should probably discuss which version of rules they will be utilizing before play begins. (This could prevent many arguments later).
Some descriptions of this game’s rules only allow movement of one square at a time (as the King in Chess), except when jumping. This makes for a much slower game.
Often, the game is played with only nine counters per team. This is more common to Fight Hasami Shogi but will probably work for Row Hasami Shogi as well. Dai Hasami Shogi (Big Intercepting Chess) is a term used to distinguish the game of eighteen counters per player from the one with nine counters per player.
As described here, a counter may jump over another counter of either team. In some versions, however, there is no jumping over friendly counters from the same team. The exact opposite is also played at times: jumping allowed only over friendly counters and not opposing counters.
Although rare, versions of the game have been played allowing only a single custodian capture at one time. Others do not allow capture of counters at the corner.
Sources
Provenzo, Asterie Baker and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Play It Again, Historic Board Games You Can Make and Play. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981. ISBN 0-13-683367-5
Sackson, Sid and Klutz Press. The Book of Classic Board Games. Klutz Press, Palo Alto, CA. 1991. ISBN 0-932592-94-5
If it is black’s turn, she may move into the position shown and capture three opposing counters.
If it is white’s turn, he may move into the position shown and capture the black counter.
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