Daily Shogi

The date fixes identity, not a scripted game

Every Daily Shogi date starts from the standard 40-piece position. The date determines whether you play Black or White and provides the deterministic seed used when the local computer has several similarly evaluated moves. After the opening, your decisions control the actual game tree. The same date can therefore lead to different positions for different players.

Black always makes the first move

Shogi begins with Black, or sente. When the date assigns you Black, you act immediately. On a White date the computer makes the opening move before you choose a response. The visible board rotates to keep your side closest to you while the engine preserves a fixed internal coordinate system for legal moves, autosave and repetition tracking.

Daily uses the same drop engine as unlimited Practice

Captured non-king pieces enter the capturing player’s reserve in base form. A reserve piece can later be dropped onto a legal empty square. Daily mode does not simplify that rule. Nifu, dead-rank pawn and lance restrictions, knight drop restrictions and pawn-drop mate protection are all active because Daily and Practice call the same legal-move generator.

Promotion decisions stay part of the game

Entering, leaving or moving inside the opponent’s promotion zone can create both promoted and unpromoted legal versions of a move. The interface asks you when the choice is genuinely optional. Mandatory promotion is applied when a pawn, lance or knight would otherwise land where it could never move again. The Daily seed does not decide that choice for you.

Returning to the date restores the exact reserve hands

Autosave stores the board, both captured-piece hands, side to move, player color, move history, repetition counts and the Clean or Assisted label. Opening the same date resumes those details rather than rebuilding only the visible board. A date with no prior save starts from the standard position using that date’s deterministic side and AI seed.

Check and checkmate are filtered by the engine

A legal move or drop may not leave your own king attacked. The engine generates candidate board moves and reserve drops, applies each one, then rejects positions that fail king safety. When the side to move has no legal reply while in check, the game ends in checkmate. A no-legal-move position also ends rather than leaving the interface stuck.

Fourfold repetition is a transparent local safeguard

The browser counts complete position keys that include the board, side to move and both reserve hands. Four appearances of the same position end the local game as a draw. That rule is disclosed as browser loop protection; the product does not claim to reproduce every federation detail for perpetual checking or tournament adjudication.

Hint and Undo remain study tools, not invisible assistance

Hint selects one legal move from the strongest local heuristic and marks the session Assisted. Undo restores the position from before your previous decision, including the computer response that followed it. Restart begins the same Daily identity again and also marks the game Assisted. The local record therefore distinguishes a clean attempt from a studied replay.

The specialist streak is separate from the main Daily set

Completing a Daily Shogi game writes only to Shogi’s own local history. Its streak counts consecutive Shogi dates and does not modify the main Today’s 6 `days` object. Shogi remains outside the frozen six-slot rotation, just like Go, Xiangqi, Chess and the other specialist games added after the original Daily set.

Daily results are not a claimed rating

The history records your result, side, move length and whether the game stayed Clean. It does not estimate a dan or kyu rank, global percentile or multiplayer rating because no verified player pool exists behind this browser-local opponent. Easy, Standard and Hard are local product settings only.

Use Practice Game for repeated study

Daily gives one stable identity per date. Practice Game gives a replayable seed and lets you choose Black, White or a seeded-random side. Fresh Practice creates another seed. Match to 3 carries game wins across several sessions. All three modes use the same Shogi engine, reserve hands and promotion rules.

No external service is required

The move generator, AI choice, autosave and migration all run locally. There is no paid API, remote Shogi engine or sign-in requirement. That local-first design makes the Daily position reproducible for QA and lets the new version copy an older local store without rewriting the old serialized value.

No wagering, chips or prizes

Daily Shogi is presented only as a strategy and learning game. There are no wagers, chips, prizes, stakes, purchases or paid-random mechanics. The Daily habit is about repeated strategic decisions, reserve-piece awareness and learning the distinctive drop-and-promotion rules.