From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 12 apr 2000
Subject: Re: 2 funny things happened

At 07:24 PM 4/11/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I am actually working on a set of Shogi rules (templated off the
>Canadian version of the rules of chess, but heavily modified to be
>shogi-suitable).  Defining that situation is tricky.  First (I am
>presuming that "nifu" means two unpromoted pawns of the same side on the
>same file), if Stryker calls it immediately, he wins, no question.
>
>The first question is, how far can you go back to claim an illegal move?
> In Western-chess blitz rules, you must claim it before making your next
>move.  This is a case that cannot exist in Western chess, on the other
>hand--the fact that an illegality occurred is obvious from the board
>position alone, but none of the later moves were illegal (unlike the
>case where a king is left in check for several moves--a player who does
>that moves illegally every time).  Well, I suppose if you move a pawn
>back to your first rank, but that would be so obvious no one would miss
>it, I would hope.
>
>My current draft is that you can claim on that position as long as the
>illegal situation remains (ie until one of the pawns promotes or is
>captured).  The real trick is to define that such that a mate ends the
>game, but without depriving the player of a remedy if the mating move
>itself is illegal.
>
     Some of these rule issues are far from academic.  At the same time as
the Ohio shogi qualifier was having its nifu problem, our own qualifier in
Washington had one too!  In our case, my son Raymond, in a difficult
position against a 4 Dan, answered a back-rank rook check by dropping a
pawn, not noticing that he had another pawn much farther up the file.  His
opponent, despite his high rank, somehow failed to notice the nifu and the
game continued for many moves with both players unaware.  Then, one of the
other players (also 4 Dan) happened to notice it and pointed it out, not
knowing that it was improper for him to do so.  As TD, I didn't know what
the proper ruling should be, though my feeling was that the game should
continue since it seemed unlikely that the nifu would have been claimed
without interference.  Fortunately, before I made a ruling, the 4 Dan
player offered to continue, perhaps not feeling entitled to the point.  He
won anyway, so there were no consequences, but like Doug I wonder what the
proper ruling would have been?

     Larry Kaufman