Comparison of Shogi Variants and Zillions of Games Shogi

By Jeff Zeitlin

Recently, on a whim, I decided to see what a game between Zillions of Games and Steve Evans's Shogi Variants 1.55a would look like. Shogi Variants beat Zillions; I've included the score below for those who might be interested in the kind of detailed analysis that I'm not capable of.

This score was generated by Shogi Variants, as the notation appears to be 'cleaner' than that from Zillions.

For those that are not familiar with this notation, the board is numbered from White's left corner, files 1-9, ranks a-i. A dash indicates a move; an x indicates a capture; a * indicates a 'drop'. If a move is followed by =, a promotion was refused; a + indicates that the piece promoted (and if it prefixes the piece, indicates that the piece making the move is promoted).

A move like G5a-4a means that there were two Gold Generals that could have moved to 4a; the one that made the move started on 5a.

    Black  White
     ZoG   SV155 
-----------------
 1. S-6h   S-3b 
 2. P-7f   K-6b 
 3. S-3h   G-3a 
 4. P-1f   L-9b 
 5. P-9f   P-1d 
 6. S-7g   P-3d 
 7. S-6f   P-3e 
 8. B-9g   P-8d 
 9. G-7h   G-5a 
10. P-4f   P-9d  
11. K-5h   G5a-4a  
12. P-2f   B-4d  
13. P-2e   K-7b  
14. P-4e   B-3c  
15. Bx5c=  P-1e  
16. Px1e   Lx1e  
17. Lx1e   Bx1e  
18. Bx3e=  L*5a  
19. L*3d   P*3c  
20. R-1h   Px3d  
21. Bx7a+  Kx7a  
22. Rx1e   L*1c  
23. P*1d   B*2f  
24. R-1f   B-3e  
25. Px1c=  Nx1c  
26. P-3f   B-4f  
27. N-1g   K-7b  
28. G-4h   G-2a  
29. G-3g   Bx3g+  
30. Sx3g   P*1b  
31. R-1d   G*3h  
32. S-4f   P-9e  
33. Px9e   P-8e  
34. Rx3d   P-8f  
35. Px8f   Rx8f  
36. Rx3b=  G4ax3b  
37. S*8g   R-8b  
38. P-9d   R*4h  
39. K-5i   R-4i+  
40. K-6h   +Rx4f  
41. K-5h   +R-4i  
42. K-6h   +Rx8i  
43. L*9c   +Rx9i  
44. Lx9b=  Rx9b  
45. S*4g   G-4h  
46. P-9c=  Rx9c  
47. L*5f   Gx4g  
48. Lx5a+  R-9g+  
49. +L-5b  S*5i  
50. K-7g   N*8e mate