Play is on a traditional shogi board, with each player having nine men. Traditional shogi pawns (
fu) can be used as men; unpromoted pawns (歩) for Black (先手
sente), promoted pawns (と) for White (後手
gote). At the start of the game each player's pieces fill their first , with Black's men on the lower side of the board. Black moves first, then players alternate turns. A player wins by capturing all but one of their opponent's men.
Moving All pieces move the same as a rook in shogi. (That is, any number of empty cells vertically or horizontally.) A move consists of moving a piece to an empty cell of the board. As in shogi there is no jumping, so a piece can move no further than adjacent to a friendly or enemy piece in its path.
Capturing An opponent's piece is captured using the : the player occupies the two cells adjacent to the piece either horizontally (on a rank) or vertically (on a file). An enemy piece in a corner cell can be captured by occupying the two cells that
orthogonally surround it. Captured pieces are removed from the game. Multiple pieces can be captured in a single move if all the cells between the capturing player's two pieces are filled by enemy men. A player can safely move a piece to a cell between two enemy pieces without being captured. Likewise, it is safe to move a piece to complete a chain of friendly pieces flanked by two opponent pieces—none of the "sandwiched" pieces are captured. ==Variant 2: Dai hasami shogi==