I agree with you, in that it does increase depth, but he is entitled to his opinion.
However, how informed is his decision? Is he a regular Shogi player... does his book mention any thing about that? His opinion is only as valuable as it is informed.
Dixi.
I agree with you, in that it does increase depth, but he is entitled to his opinion.
However, how informed is his decision? Is he a regular Shogi player... does his book mention any thing about that? His opinion is only as valuable as it is informed.
Dixi.
Edward Lasker (a distant relation of world chess champion Emanuel Lasker) was a fanatical player of go. In fact, I believe he traveled to Japan to study. He wrote a book about the game and tried to help popularize it in the West.
How much shogi he played, if any, I don't know. But he seems rather dismissive of it. In fact, in the same book I mentioned, he goes on to say, "...in Japan too, chess [shogi] is considered much inferior to the game of I-go [go]." Remember, however, that this was written in the 1950s. And Lasker may not be the best of researchers. I've found some factual errors in this book.
Not that he was a slouch. Lasker was an IM and strong go player (possibly titled, although I'd have to look that last fact up).
Amy
as you know the drop rule is used in bughouse and crazyhouse...and I love the drop concept. I think it adds great strategy to the game and really spices things up.
I have to admit that this thread is a bit of a troll...
but I just read this comment by Edward Lasker in his book The Adventure of Chess (1959), and it upset me:
"Japanese chess...has certain curious peculiarities the origin of which has never been traced. One of them is the right of the player to place any captured man on any unoccupied square, instead of moving a man of his own. The man thus replaced on the board joins the army of his former opponent. This makes a capture doubly valuable. On the other hand, it introduces a tremendous complication without increasing the depth of the game."
Do you think Lasker was right about "complication without increased depth"?
Amy
All , I can say is : I think he was wrong.
CLOSING has dougle meaning ; to approach and to end ?
Yes, in English, also, "closing" can mean both "approach" and "ending".
Once I have more time to write, I will relate a little story about a tori shogi game I once took part in, and my opponent's and my own reaction to the drop rule. (Tori shogi also has the drop rule, btw.)
I feel the drop rule definitely adds more depth to the game. Since you always have to be wary of drops, one wrong move could open a valuable square for an opponent's drop. So unlike chess, where you're constantly fighting for territory for your living pieces to command, in shogi you have to command territory both to allow for your own pieces' dominance and prevent your opponent's pieces in hand from breaching your defenses.
That certainly sounds like a comment of someone who hasn't looked deeply enough into shogi to understand how it works. It certainly sounds like how I used to think of igo, how before I learned how to play I thought it was just mindless placing of stones all over the board. I'd say it's immature at best to make such a comment without looking further into a subject.
Lasker's comment reeks of western superiority to eastern ideas. It was very typical of all thought in the centuries preceeding the 20th, but took on even more significance during the cold war. At first glance, to be impartial, he may have thought that the drop rule created situations that were "too random" to allow full analysis of the position. But it's very typical of revolutions in thought, that ideas that are seemingly alien to us suddenly take on a new dimension. Lasker made his assumption in an era where computers were only first being explored for game-playing potential ('59), and everyone knows how the comment that "computers will never be able to rival human opponents" is viewed nowadays. I think the same could be said of Shogi today - that it (at least outside of Japan) can't rival Chess in terms of popularity, but the gap keeps decreasing as more western players are discovering how complex and enjoyable the game really is.
The great thing with the drop rule is that you really have to play for a win, draws are very hard to achieve, and it's nearly impossible to suck the life out of a game. The drop rule essentially means there is no endgame (in the traditional sense), so you can't just win a pawn or two and simplify the game until your small advantage is big enough to win.
The problem with the drop rule is that it makes the game more tactical, and I think it's what Lasker meant. Actually, if we look at CrazyHouse, I think Lasker is perfectly right; the drop rule makes everything much more complicated without increasing the dept of the game.
But I think Shogi is different because the pieces are weak and move slowly. While CrazyHouse is a fast game with little long-term planning involved, Shogi is a game where the players will try to slowly build momentum, and where positional understanding is very important, arguably more than in international chess.
b4 i read comments, i thot this "controvery" was about whether or not dropping mate with a pawn not being allowed made much sence. now that i understand, how one can NOT view the concept of "dropping" as adding more to the complexity of the game is BEYOND me!
I have to admit that this thread is a bit of a troll...
but I just read this comment by Edward Lasker in his book The Adventure of Chess (1959), and it upset me:
"Japanese chess...has certain curious peculiarities the origin of which has never been traced. One of them is the right of the player to place any captured man on any unoccupied square, instead of moving a man of his own. The man thus replaced on the board joins the army of his former opponent. This makes a capture doubly valuable. On the other hand, it introduces a tremendous complication without increasing the depth of the game."
Do you think Lasker was right about "complication without increased depth"?
Amy