Can't take my win in minishogi?

[game;id:1492753;move:56]

The shogi rules page states:
"""
On Little Golem is implemented Try Rule. The player who brought his king to the initial position of his opponent's king wins the game.
"""
And the wikipedia page on minishogi states:
"""
The rules are identical to those of standard shogi, except that it is played with a reduced number of pieces on a 5x5 board, and each player's promotion zone consists only of the rank farthest from the player.
"""

When I click on the king I'm only offered moves backward, which I don't want to do, obviously.

What gives?

I'm guessing it's because much of the implementation is taken from the implementation of chess. In chess the game is over after a check-mate, whereas (if I remember correctly) in shogi it's not over until you actually take your opponents king. Also, in chess it's not legal to mve your king into a position where it can be captured. I guess that last one would apply here. Should be legal in shogi, but not in chess.

That's what I think, but you should probably wait for someone who actually knows the game to comment it :-)

Indeed, capturing the king was the definition of winning I read in the rules. He won't be able to capture my king - I'll already have won by that stage.

As you can tell from my rating I know bugger all about shogi, all I know is what I have read in the resources I have been pointed towards.

The link below suggests that moving the king to an attacked square is an illegal move (1.4.4 - I've also copied the relevant bit in case). And the main Wiki page states that an illegal move immediately loses the game, although I guess the implementation on-line just disallows illegal moves rather than making the opponent claim the win in this way.

http://81dojo.com/manual/index.php?Rules%20and%20Manners%20of%20Shogi

1.4.4　Move that Lets the Own King Captured â€
Such a move is prohibited that it creates a position where one's own King is on a square within the range of opponent pieces' movements. This refers to leaving one's own King in check, moving one's King to opponent's movement range, or removing one's piece that has been blocking an opponent's piece from capturing one's own King.

Whether this link / rule is correct I don't know, I'm also no expert. However I can't find an 'Official' set of rules so it's an interesting question.

A game where a winning move is not considered a legal move kinda makes me laugh. "you cannot make the winning move *because after it*..." is just so freaking stupid.

There was some debate about this on 81dojo (in real shogi) some time ago...
I think it's reasonable to require the winning move not to put your king in check.

In 3*4 shogi, you also win when you bring your king to the last rank, *on the condition* that your king won't be in check.

Also, for the official rules of shogi in some japanese amateur tournaments, without the try rule, in some cases you can claim a win on the condition that your king is not in check (for Jishogi rules).

It's a fucking stupid condition. (So no, I don't think it's a reasonable condition at all.) The idea of your opponent's potential *following* move somehow nullifying your winning move is *braindead*.

Extend that logic to hex all the way up the game tree - player 2 would never be allowed to make a move!

Scrap the try rule, and my complaint goes away; it's clearly a very badly thought out rule if its flaws can be found after so little play.

Well, as someone pointed out, putting your King in chess in Shogi is actually an illegal move. As in chess, the goal isn't really to capture the king, but really to put it in a position where there is no legal move (Checkmate).

I think the notion of "capturing the king" is here to make things more visual for beginners. In addition to the rules I mentioned above, that show the coherence of it, there is also the rule that it's forbidden to drop a pawn that would be checkmate. It shows that the goal of the game is to make checkmate. (There would be no need to even define a checkmate if the goal was simply to capture the king).

In a professional game, if a player puts his king in check, he loses immediately, the opponent won't capture it.

Well, I'm not 100% sure about all that i'm saying (I'm just a foreign player), maybe Takodori or another Japanese player can be more convincing.

Alternatively, if you really want to see the victory as capturing the king, then you could say that the victory condition of the try rule is... "If your king is at your opponent's king starting position, and it's your turn, then you can claim the victory." This way, moving to the square, without being in check, is similar to making a checkmate: you force the win at the next move. And it's obviously not a win to move there is the square is protected, for the same reason as it's not a win to make a checkmate while ignoring one's king is already in check.

Certainly rewording the try rule as "if you remain on the square" rather than "if you reach the square" would fix it.

From what I read about shogi (which wasn't much), it was unlike chess and didn't have the IMHO stupid "if your move leads to your opponent being able to capture your king, you lose (by virtue of you not playing a legal move)" rule that chess has. Such a rule is a perfect example of inelegance, one of the things that I detest the most about western chess. I had hoped that shogi was different. With a "capturing the king wins the game" rule, there's no need for a "letting your opponent capture your king on his next move loses the game" rule. Such rules are just inelegant carbunkles.

Certainly the pawn drop rule is an arbitrary carbunkle which adds to the inelegance of the rules in shogi. Maybe it's there to fix some other problem, but it still stands out as inelegant, and arbitrary. In what way is dropping a pawn to create checkmate less checkmatey than dropping a non-pawn to create checkmate? You've not highlighted coherence there, you've highlighted an even bigger incoherence.

An interesting note: I first learned Bughouse with a distinction between "Siamese" which is what everyone now calls Bughouse and the game I then \knew as Bughouse where you could not lay down check. Or, according to some, you could lay down check by a non-pawn, but you couldn't lay down mate. There was also an occasional rule that pawns had to be placed on the 2nd rank.

In any case, I don't think seeming inelegance is a high price to pay if in the actual play, it makes for a more engaging competition. Elegant-seeming rules suggest one might get satisfying tropes and games, but they don't ensure it.

Modeling a game where a king does not win a war if he's put in a position where he himself won't survive does not offend me.

I think whatever the answer is, the 'try' rule does need clarifying. One point I would make though is that there will be slight differences between on-line and live, so quoting rules and examples aren't necessarily relevant. I will stress though, I'm no expert when it comes to Shogi.

This is common of other games too, not just Shogi. For example, in chess (among others) the touch-move rule doesn't apply on-line, you're allowed to move a piece and cancel the move without submitting it.

I never heard that "Try rule" is applied in Minishogi.

Good to know :-)

So there is generally no Try rule in mini-shogi.
Is it true on littlegolem as well? has anybody ever tried it?

Valette--the Try rule is in place for mini shogi, see this forum for an example:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=10&topic=182

Ok, thanks!