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What is wrong with Shou Dou Qi?. Comments on the rules of Shou Dou Qi - the Animal Game.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Fri, Jan 26, 2007 01:20 PM UTC:BelowAverage ★★
The rule that Bodlaender mentions is indeed wrong. There are 2 variants:

1. A piece is allowed to move into its own trap square, but it is NOT
invincible. It can be taken by a stronger enemy piece just like on any
other square.
2. A piece is allowed to move into its own trap square, but it becomes
weak and can be taken of any enemy piece regardless of rank (just like
what the enemy receives).

Therefore, Gering's critique is impertinent. The general strategy of
animal chess is to lure an enemy piece away from guarding the trap
squares
(usually, nobody would put their pieces in the trap squares in either
variant) and move in.

There is also another variant of animal chess, where the traps and den is
not used and is taken like any other square on the board. The side which
captures all the enemy pieces wins.

George Duke wrote on Fri, May 9, 2008 07:34 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Rare 63 squares, the same one. This clarifies Rules and Strategy of that last one 7x9 Shou Dou Qi. Some ''modern capitalist games have rules which allow an easy drawing strategy. It means that the authors made a mistake or that the games were not meant to be played by truly intelligent people.'' The critique here, in what Panther! maintains, is that Shou Dou Qi is indeed a Draw best play ''but much more complicated than claimed by Mallet and Bodlaender.''

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 11:06 AM UTC:
Why not just add rule that don't allow to occupy all your traps at same time?

ColonelCrockett wrote on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 02:03 AM UTC:
An player can win in the 'drawing' situation when 1)the opponent's rat
is pinned away from the action of the center by an opposing rat and 2)the
elephants, lions, and tigers all oppose one another by occupying squares
preventing the opponent from moving. take the following example from a
strongly played game ... http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=4546199&i=207

black had only to place his dog and leopard on b1 and b2 (it doesn't
matter which piece is used where) and then sacrific on c2. white must
capture with the stronger lion or elephant and allows either lion-b3
followed by the offer of a lion sacrifice or elephant-d3 threatening to
capture the lion and sacrifice the elephant to jump into c1 and then the
den. the end is obvious from this point.

I'm not saying you're wrong ... A jungle game should be a draw ... but so
should a shogi, chess, and tictactoe game. I think this game deserves a
better analysis placing it closer to chess than to tictactoe.

addendum: I play as 'ColonelCrockett' on brainking and will accept almost
any challenge in Dou Shou Qi.

Luis wrote on Fri, Mar 18, 2011 06:00 PM UTC:Average ★★★
Why not adopting this rule?

A piece can capture an opponent one guarding its trap, following the normal
rules of capture, because it is ENTERING the trap square. The piece only
loses its powers AFTER the capture, when it IS indeed in the trap.

Alan wrote on Wed, Jun 5, 2019 11:58 PM UTC:

As I read the rules (and ths is how we have played it) a piece is captured by another pece of at least the same strength enteriing th square of the frst mentioned piece.  I have not found any rule that expliciity forbids enteriing the same square as a stronger piece; the stronger piece is simply not captured (nor does it "capture" the weaker entering piece since the rule requires that the capturng piece must be the one entering the square). The only problem we have encountered with this interpretation arises if playinng wth 3D figures instead of flat disks, since it is diffiicult to "stack" 3D fgures.


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