Silver general

In the initial arrangement of pieces in classical shogi, each of the opponents has 2 silver, standing across the field from the king, to the right and to the left of him: black - on the fields 3i and 7i , white - 3a and 7a .

In one move, silver can go to any neighboring field except the fields located to the right, to the left of it and directly behind it.

Thus, silver in the middle of an empty board has 5 stroke options.

The value of silver (if we consider the value of a pawn as 1), according to various siegists , is:

• 5 ( Tomohide Kawasaki , 4 amateur dan ^[1] , and Michio Ariyoshi , 9th professional dan ^[2] )
• 7 ( Larry Kaufman , 5 dan FESA ^[3] )
• 8 ( Koji Tanigawa , 17th Meijin for life) ^[1]
• 10 ( Yasumitsu Sato , 4th lifetime kisei ) ^[1]

Like gold, when attacking, silver is more valuable to have in the hand or on the board “on the top” of the opponent’s king, and when defending, on the board, as close as possible to your king.

Beginners are advised to consider the value of silver equal to 5 (the number of possible moves).

When moving into the coup zone (three distant horizontal lines), moving inside it and exiting it, silver can turn over if desired. If silver didn’t turn upside down when leaving the coup zone, then it needs to enter the zone again to coup.

Inverted silver designation in European notation: + S.

On the charts, inverted silver ( Jap. 成 銀 nari-gin ) is sometimes indicated by a hieroglyph ( Jap. 全 ) .

Inverted silver goes the same way as gold , and can no longer roll over. But the one who eats it will receive ordinary silver in his hand.

Inverted Silver Value

The value of silver (if we consider the value of a pawn as 1), according to various siegists , is:

• 6 ( Michio Ariyoshi , 9th professional dan ^[2] )
• 6 (Larry Kaufman, 5th dan of FESA ^[3] )
• 9-10 ( Koji Tanigawa , 17th Meijin for life) ^[1]

In the opening, silver is used to build a fortress . At the end of the debut, silver is the most frequently challenging figure ( shikake ). At the beginning of the middlegame silver most often goes for bargaining, because it has a little more maneuverability in retreat and a little less value than gold.

There are 3 main classic silver attack patterns: goddesses , kosikakegin, and hayaguri gin . In counteracting each other, these schemes dominate one over the other in a cycle, like elements of the “stone-scissors-paper” game, which introduces a moment in psychology when choosing an attacking scheme in the opening.

According to Yoshiharu Habu (19th lifetime meijin), silver is “glue that pulls moves together” ^[4] .

There is a version that the historical predecessor of the silver general is the elephant in Thai Macrook chess, which walks exactly like silver ^[5] .

• Walk with silver zigzags (literally - “how a plover flies”)
• Silver on the head of the opponent’s horse - good shape ^[6]

In the shogi , each player also has 2 silver standing to the right of the right gold and to the left of the left. These silver generals walk in the same way as in classical shogi, but they turn over into a vertical walker ( 竪 юг юг shugyo:) : a figure that moves to the right and left only to the neighboring field, and up and down to any number of fields.

• Kislyuk L. W., “The Game of Japanese Heroes. Japanese shogi chess and their immediate family. ” University Book, 1996 , 96 pp.
• Nosovsky A. M., "Japanese Shogi Chess". Publisher: M .: Astrel, 2004 , 864 p.