Rook and lance handicap (hi-kyo-ochi)

What changes

The rules are those of the even game throughout — hand and drops, nifu, dead drops, uchifuzume, promotion in the far three ranks, sennichite on the fourth repetition with the perpetual-checker losing, and impasse settled by the twenty-four point count.

Before play, two of gote’s men are removed: the rook from 8b and the lance from 1a, the lance at gote’s own left hand. Gote then makes the first move, because this site seats uwate — the stronger player — as gote and shitate, with a full army, as sente.

Playing shitate

At plain rook odds you must choose a file to fight on. Here the choice is made for you: the first file, where uwate has no lance. Swinging the rook across to the first file, pushing the edge pawn, and trading it off gives you an open file into a corner defended by whatever uwate can spare, which is never enough.

The obviousness of the plan is also its danger, because uwate can see it too. Build the attack properly — a silver up beside the rook, a lance of your own behind the pawn, a pawn in hand for the breakthrough — and castle on the ninth-file side first. The attack does not run away.

Playing uwate

Do not castle into the corner you no longer have a lance for. That is the whole difference between this and rook odds, and it is enough to make an otherwise familiar defensive plan lose. Castle on the ninth-file side instead, where your lance and knight are intact, and make shitate travel the width of the board to reach you.

Your bishop is the one man who can cross that distance in a move, so keep its diagonal open and pointed at the squares shitate must use to bring his rook over. Your first move matters here: spend it on a pawn push that gives the bishop a road, not on a defensive move you could make later.

Sources

Everything on this page is written from scratch. These are the works it leans on, and what each one settles.

• Nihon Shogi Renmei (Japan Shogi Association) handicap ladder

  The source for this rung and for its contents: uwate’s rook and uwate’s left lance, which are the 8b and 1a men in this site’s seating, with uwate to move first.