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Hasami Shogi, whose name means “sandwich shogi”, is a traditional Japanese game played with the pawns of a shogi set on a 9×9 board. Every piece slides like a rook, and you capture by trapping enemy pieces between two of your own. In this version the first to capture five wins. Play the computer and build a win streak; it reads deeper as the streak grows.
You play the pale pieces marked 歩 along the bottom row; the computer has the red pieces marked と along the top. You move first, and then you take turns. On your turn, tap one of your pieces and then one of the lit squares. A piece moves any number of empty squares straight along its row or column, like a rook in chess. It cannot move diagonally and cannot jump over other pieces.
After you move, check all four directions from the piece you moved. If one enemy piece, or an unbroken straight line of several enemy pieces, sits between it and another of your pieces, all of them are captured. One move can capture in more than one direction at once. A piece standing in a corner of the board is captured when you occupy both squares beside it. Moving your own piece into a gap between two enemy pieces is safe; only the player who moves makes captures.
The row of five dots beside each player shows how many pieces they have taken. The first to capture five wins. If the same position comes up three times the game is a draw, and after 200 moves the player with more captures wins.
A win adds one to your streak, a draw keeps it and a loss resets it. The computer looks further ahead the longer your streak gets.
A piece is in danger when an enemy piece touches it on one side and the square on the opposite side is empty, because any enemy piece that can slide into that empty square captures it. Since pieces move like rooks, that attacker can come from the far side of the board, so before every move look along the rows and columns that lead to the open side of each of your exposed pieces.
The safest shape is a pair. Two of your pieces side by side cannot be sandwiched along that line, because the enemy would need to trap both, with its own pieces at each end. Keep pieces in pairs or backed by the board edge, and advance them together rather than one at a time.
Remember that stepping between two enemy pieces is safe. It is often the best way to block a lane or to set up your own capture, and a beginner computer tends to leave such gaps open. Look too for moves that capture in two directions at once, or that threaten two different captures, because the computer can only block one.
Corners are a quiet trap. A piece in a corner can be taken by just two pieces, one on each neighbouring square, and it has only two ways out. Do not park a piece there unless both of its neighbours are yours.