Japan's unique version of an ancient abstract game of jumping captures.
Hasami shogi is a traditional Japanese game played on a shogi-ban, i.e., a 9×9 grid of spaces, using the fhuyo (pawns) from a shogi set (and as such this game should not be considered a Shogi Variant as the capture rules differ greatly. The pieces initially occupy the entire back row, i.e., the row of spaces nearest the controlling player. As in shogi, the sides are called sente (black) and gote (white) with sente going first, but the colors associated with the names are purely conventional. The object of the game is to be the first player to capture either five or eight of an opponent's pieces, as agreed upon before starting the game. An opponent's piece is taken by custodial capture, i.e., by being sandwiched horizontally or vertically (but not diagonally) between a player's own pieces. A piece must be moved into such a postion immediately on either side of an opponent's piece to make a capture, but multiple captures can be made simultaneously. This occurs only if a piece is moved so that it causes more than one enemy piece to be positioned between the piece moved and another of the player's own pieces.
