Shogi Lesson 2: Pieces in Hand, Drops, Promotion and Mate

Finish Lesson 1 first: find g3, tell gold from silver, and know that Gote's forward is the opposite of Sente's. If anything is unclear, go back to Lesson 1. Each example below is set up on its own; they are not one continuous game.

This lesson goes in order: captured pieces in hand → legal drops → promotion → recognising mate → repetition and other rules. Read the restrictions before you act. Finishing a guided line is not the same as winning a game.

An enemy piece you capture becomes one of your pieces in hand and sits beside the board; if it was promoted, it flips back to its original side. On your turn, instead of moving a piece on the board you may place a piece in hand on any empty square: a drop. A drop is a whole turn, and the piece points toward your opponent.

Drops have a few limits. You may not drop a pawn on a file that already has one of your unpromoted pawns (nifu, "two pawns"). A pawn or lance may not be dropped on the last rank, nor a knight on the last two ranks, because it could never move again. And you may not give checkmate by dropping a pawn.

This exercise starts with Sente holding one gold and one silver beside the board — not the normal starting setup. Select the gold in hand, then d8, to play G@d8. The @ means a drop from your hand, not a move from another square. Your gold count goes down by one.

Gote's king then steps e9–f9 away from the gold, and Sente drops the silver on f8: S@f8. The three moves alternate; you can never drop two pieces in a row. The silver attacks the king on f9 — that is check, but not mate: nothing protects the silver on f8, so the king can simply capture it. Check is not the same as checkmate.

The three ranks nearest your opponent are the promotion zone: ranks 7–9 for Sente and 1–3 for Gote. A piece that can promote may do so whenever the move starts or ends inside the zone. A drop can never promote on the same turn. Kings and golds never promote.

Promoted pawns, lances, knights and silvers all move like a gold. A promoted rook keeps its straight lines and adds one step diagonally; a promoted bishop keeps its diagonals and adds one step straight. If a promoted piece is captured, it returns to its original form in the captor's hand.

A pawn or lance reaching its last rank must promote, and a knight reaching its last two ranks must promote, because otherwise it could never move again. "Last" depends on who owns the piece. In other cases promotion is usually your choice, but outside the zone you can never flip a piece.

Demo: Sente plays g7–g8 and promotes, written g7g8+; the plus sign records the promotion. The piece stays on g8 but now moves like a gold. Compare its old one-step-forward move with its new gold moves. This move does not checkmate.

Mate (tsumi) means the king is in check and no reply helps. Don't only ask whether the king can move: also ask whether the attacker can be captured, or whether another piece or a drop can block. This is a hand-made mate-in-one puzzle; not every ending relies on a drop.

Drop the gold on e8, attacking Gote's king on e9. The king cannot take the gold because the pawn on e7 protects it. The gold covers f8, f9 and d8, and Gote's own lance occupies d9. A lance only moves straight forward, so it cannot capture on e8, and Gote has no other defence: it is mate. Check all five squares around the king yourself instead of memorising "gold to e8".

When the same position with the same side to move occurs four times, it is sennichite and the game is normally replayed — unless the repetition comes from one side checking continuously, in which case the checking side loses. A king that walks into the enemy camp has "entered" (nyūgyoku); that alone does not win, and the outcome is settled by points under the event's rules.

"The same position" also includes both players' pieces in hand and whose turn it is, not just the board. Declaration and point rules for entering kings depend on the rules your event uses; this is only a short introduction, not a full adjudication guide.

A castle is a defensive formation built around the king with golds, silvers and other pieces. Unlike castling in chess it is not one special move: you build it with ordinary moves. When to defend and when to attack depends on your opponent's threats; there is no rule that you must make a fixed dozen setup moves first.

Before each move in a real game, check: is my king under attack, what pieces does my opponent hold in hand, and where could a drop give check? When reviewing, note any threat you missed and try another move from the position before it. This lesson does not show a complete Mino castle or Climbing Silver, so reading it does not mean you know those openings.