Hasami Shogi is a simple variant of the japanese game Shogi.
The first to capture five pieces wins the game.
It's played on a traditional shogi board. Traditional shogi pawns (fu) can be used as men; 9 unpromoted pawns (歩) for Black (先手 sente) and 9 promoted pawns (と) for White (後手 gote). At the start of the game each player's pieces fill their first rank, with Black's men on the lower side of the board. Black moves first, then players alternate turns. A player wins by capturing five of their opponent's men.
Moving
All pieces move the same as a rook in shogi or a rook in western chess. That is, any number of empty cells vertically or horizontally. A piece must stop before the border of the board or any other piece.
Captures
An opponent's piece is captured using the custodian method: the player occupies the two cells adjacent to the piece on the same orthogonal direction (either horizontally or vertically). An enemy piece in a corner cell can be captured by occupying the two cells that orthogonally surround it. Captured pieces are removed from the game. Multiple pieces can be captured in a single move if all the cells between the capturing player's two pieces are filled by enemy men.
A player can safely move a piece to a cell between two enemy pieces without being captured. Likewise, it is safe to move a piece to complete a chain of friendly pieces flanked by two opponent pieces—none of the "sandwiched" pieces are captured.
A board of a finished game of Hasami Shogi
The first 1:50 of the following video explains quite well the rules
General Statistics:
- 43 games played.
- 43 victories and 0 draws.
- 38 average movements per game ( max: 72, min: 15).
- 27 victories by the first player vs 16 victories from another player.