ICGA Olympiad: Shogi Tournament

[hgm]

The second day of the Shogi tournament has been concluded. Tomorrow three more rounds. There are 9 participants, as the Chinese had to cancel due to visa problems. The current standings are:

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 G G B S T S Y K S
 # . 1 . 1 1 1 1 1 6/6 GPS Shogi
 . # 1 1 1 . 1 1 . 5/5 Gekisashi
 0 0 # . . 1 1 1 1 4/6 Bonanza
 . 0 . # . 1 1 1 1 4/5 Shueso
 0 0 . . # 1 1 . 1 3/5 Tacos
 0 . 0 0 0 # . 1 1 2/6 Shokidoki
 0 0 0 0 0 . # . . 0/5 Yamada Shogi
 0 0 0 0 . 0 . # . 0/6 Kinoa Shogi
 0 . 0 0 0 0 . . # 0/5 STR

STR is an engine without search, so beating it is not really an imperessive feat, and it will probably end with zero points. My engine, Shokidoki, did manage one 'real point', which makes the tournament a success for me:

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[Event "Computer Chess Game"]
[Site "JAIST"]
[Date "2010.09.30"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Kinoa Shogi"]
[Black "Shokidoki 0.8f"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "3300"]
[Variant "shogi"]
[Annotator "1... -0.32"]

1. h4 Kf8 {-0.32/15 2:26} 2. c4 b6 {+0.80/15 54} 3. Bc3 Gg8 {+0.60/15 54}
4. Gc2 Sd8 {+0.76/15 47} 5. Sb2 c6 {+1.08/15 43} 6. h5 Nc7 {+1.20/14 38} 7.
h6 hxh6 {+1.28/13 43} 8. Rxh6 i6 {+0.80/13 1:59} 9. Sf2 Ge8 {+0.88/10 1:01}
10. Kd1 c5 {+1.08/10 1:17} 11. cxc5 Rb9 {+0.08/12 1:14} 12. Be5 g6
{+0.56/10 1:06} 13. Bf4 P@h7 {-0.36/10 1:29} 14. Rxg6 Bxb2+ {+1.04/11 2:11}
15. Gxb2 S@f5 {-1.60/11 1:22} 16. Rxg8+ Sxg8 {-0.48/12 41} 17. Be5 Ng7
{-2.20/10 1:03} 18. G@c8 Rg9 {-2.52/11 1:08} 19. c6 Nd5 {-2.60/11 1:36} 20.
c7+ Se9 {-2.72/10 58} 21. B@c6 R@h6 {+0.52/10 1:32} 22. Gg1 Nxe3=
{+1.32/10 2:06} 23. Sxe3 P@g2 {+0.44/11 1:12} 24. Gf1 Rxh1+ {+1.28/9 1:27}
25. Ge1 Se6 {+1.12/10 1:49} 26. N@g6 Kf9 {-1.52/1 1:37} 27. +Pd8 Nf5
{-1.60/9 1:41} 28. +Pxe8 Kxe8 {+0.04/9 1:32} 29. Sf4 Sxe5 {-0.16/8 1:28}
30. Sxe5 Ne3= {-0.20/8 1:39} 31. Ke2 Sg7 {-0.28/8 1:41} 32. G@h8 Sxh8
{-0.68/7 1:24} 33. S@d9 Kf9 {-0.84/1 1:12} 34. Nxh8 Rxg3+ {-0.80/8 1:23}
35. Bxd7+ Kf8 {+0.16/8 1:15} 36. P@g6 N@d4 {+7.92/6 1:19} 37. Sxd4 +Rxe1
{+399.84/7 18} 38. Kxe1 G@d1 {+399.88/5}
{White resigns} 0-1

After a game which stayed close to equality to the very end (+1 means nothing in Shogi, where you can still easily lose if you are at +15), white ('sente') neglects its King safety, and the score suddenly jumps up to +8 for black, and one move later mate in 3 is announced. White will be checkmated after 39.Ke2 {only move} G@f2 40.Kxe3 {only move} +Rxf3# {Checkmate} 0-1 and resigns.

[shogi4fun]

The second day of the Shogi tournament has been concluded. Tomorrow three more rounds. There are 9 participants, as the Chinese had to cancel due to visa problems.

But for Shokidoki are only 2 games left. Good luck!

My engine, Shokidoki, did manage one 'real point', which makes the tournament a success for me:

Congratulation.
Not a bad start, for the first time.
Improving Shokidoki a little bit more and it will be close to finale at next CSA-Tournament.

... white ('sente') ...

Oh, (for non-shogi-players) not much important, but in shogi BLACK is making the first move (and is called as you wrote 'sente').

[hgm]

Final result:

Code: Select all

 G G B S T S Y K S 
 # 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  8  Gekisashi 
 0 # 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  7  Shueso 
 0 0 # 1 1 1 1 1 1  6  GPS Shogi 
 0 0 0 # 1 1 1 1 1  5  Bonanza 
 0 0 0 0 # 1 1 1 1  4  Tacos 
 0 0 0 0 0 # 0 1 1  2  Shokidoki 
 0 0 0 0 0 1 # 0 1  2  Yamada Shogi 
 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 # 1  2  Kinoa Shogi 
 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 #  0  STR 

[hgm]

Oh, (for non-shogi-players) not much important, but in shogi BLACK is making the first move (and is called as you wrote 'sente').

Well, in real Shogi, (oriental style), all pieces are white... And 'sente' does not mean 'black' in Japanese, but 'he who leads'. So where this notion that the first who plays would be 'black' comes from is a bit of a puzzle. In WinBoard the side that moves first by definition is called 'white'.

But as I know this can be confusing to Shogi players, I added 'sente' to remove any ambiguity.

[shogi4fun]

Well, in real Shogi, (oriental style), all pieces are white...

Of course I know.

And 'sente' does not mean 'black' in Japanese, ...

Of course I also know.

but 'he who leads'.

Hmm, not a good translation: better is "initiative"
(Also Go players will have a little bit other understanding of it than Shogi-players.)

So where this notion that the first who plays would be 'black' comes from is a bit of a puzzle.

I don't know WHERE this notation come from (maybe from the game Go, where also black is the beginning player), BUT I know THAT this notation came.

In japanese Shogi books there are used black and white triangles for the both players. Japanese use it always for WRITING, but they SPEAK sente and gote.
▲２六歩 △３四歩 ▲７六歩 △３二金 ...

For example look at this japanese page:
http://toki.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/bgame/1282103622/

In WinBoard the side that moves first by definition is called 'white'.

Japanese people will have problems with it.
But I assume that WinBoard is not made for Japanese.

[hgm]

OK, thank you for the clarification on the origins of this black vs. white habit. Indeed WinBoard is mainly intended to cater to the adventurous western Chess player, that is willing to try something novel, without being scared away by needless complications (such as Kanji, board coordinates, color naming or move notation). For uniformity it is better to refer to sente as white in PGN. Changing the color names then becomes the task of the PGN to PSN converter, just like changing the move notation. Japanese will not want to read PGN anyway (nor PSN?).

I am even thinking of changing the promotion character in PGN. The '+' is a very awkward choice, as it conflicts with the in-check symbol. It leads to ever recurring problems, becase it confuses the SAN move parser, which would strip it off as irrelevant. So in WinBoard, it can only work when every deferred promotion is concisely suffixed with an '=' symbol, as with any '+' suffix stripped off, there would no longer be a difference between the promoting and the same non-promotion moves if the '=' were missing. But is is quite uncommon to have such suffixing in either Shogi game notation or engine output, and it is impossible to add it without knowledge of the position. Furthermore, it is a bit inconvenient that it is no longer possible to indicate checking moves in Shogi PGN.

So perhaps it would be better to use, say, '^' as a promotion suffix in PGN, do away with the '=' altogether, and restore the meaning of '+' to that of check indicator. I.e. accept the fact that PSN is too different from PSN to conveniently mimic it, and go for a format that makes translation between the formats as easy as possible, rather than make them look the same as much as possible. Changing '+' into '^', or vice versa, is a trivial task. Appending '=' where it is absent, but needed, is hopelessly complicated...