🔗 Taikyoku Shogi

🔗 Chess 🔗 Japan

Taikyoku shōgi (Japanese: 大局将棋) lit. "ultimate chess" is the largest known variant of shogi (Japanese chess). The game was created around the mid-16th century (presumably by priests) and is based on earlier large board shogi games. Before the rediscovery of taikyoku shogi in 1997, tai shogi was believed to be the largest playable chess variant ever. It has not been shown that taikyoku shogi was ever widely played. There are only two sets of restored taikyoku shogi pieces and one of them is held at Osaka University of Commerce. One game may be played over several long sessions and require each player to make over a thousand moves.

Because the game was found only recently after centuries of obscurity, it is difficult to say exactly what all the rules were. Several documents describing the game have been found; however, there are differences between them. Many of the pieces appear in other shogi variants but their moves may be different. The board, and likewise the pieces, were made much smaller, making archeological finds difficult to decipher. Research into this game continues for historical and cultural reasons, but also to satisfy the curious and those who wish to play what could be the most challenging chess-like game ever made. More research must be done however. This article focuses on one likely set of rules that can make the game playable in modern times but is by no means canon. These rules may change as more discoveries are made and secrets of the game unlocked.

Further, because of the terse and often incomplete wording of the historical sources for the large shogi variants, except for chu shogi and to a lesser extent dai shogi (which were at some points of time the most prestigious forms of shogi being played), the historical rules of taikyoku shogi are not clear. Different sources often differ significantly in the moves attributed to the pieces, and the degree of contradiction (summarised below with the listing of most known alternative moves) is such that it is likely impossible to reconstruct the "true historical rules" with any degree of certainty, if there ever was such a thing. It is not clear if the game was ever played much historically, as there is no record of any sets having been made.