| Object: Checkmate (or capture) your opponent's Phoenix (just like Western Chess)
Right-click on the pieces to see how they move. Falcons and Swallows
promote when they reach the last but one rank. Unlike Modern Shogi, promotion is compulsory.
When a piece is captured it is added to the capturer's "reserve", an
army of pieces which can be reintroduced into play on the capturer's
side (pieces in reserve are also said to be "in hand"). Pieces are
all the same color, and the direction a piece is pointing from indicates
which player it belongs to. On any subsequent turn, the capturer may
"drop" any captured piece (in its unpromoted state) onto a vacant square
on the board, subject to a few rules:
- A Swallow may not be dropped on a file that already contains two Swallows.
- A Swallow may not be dropped with checkmate.
- A Swallow may not be dropped on the last rank.
Tori Shogi is the smallest of the ancient games of the Shogi family. The game dates from the end of the eighteenth century and is attributed to Ohashi Soei, a famous master of Shogi.
Tori Shogi literally means 'Bird Chess' and all of the pieces are named
after birds.
Apart from Shogi itself (and possibly Wa Shogi), Tori is the only old
variant that is played with 'drops' (returning captured pieces into play),
a feature which adds greatly to the appeal and depth of strategy of the
game. (From the ShogiVar help file). This implementation is partly based
on the optimized and more efficient Shogi script written by Fergus Duniho. |
