Shogi, which shares a common Indian ancestor with the Western game
of chess, is played on eighty-one squares with twenty pieces per side. Most
pieces can be “promoted,” which is to say that they acquire greater freedom
of motion upon penetrating deep into enemy territory. Captured pieces may
be put back into play by the capturing side.
The counting of installments is not consistent throughout the narrative.
The number sixty-four would seem to include sixty-two installments in the
narrative proper plus a sort of entr’acte following the suspension of the
Hakoné sessions and an epilogue at the end of the match.
A complex process of consolidating and simplifying the lines takes
place at the end of an important match, to make the outcome clear to the
most untutored eye.
The “throwing of beans” to drive out malign influences. The rites
occur during the first week in February, midway between the winter
solstice and the vernal equinox. There is a touch of fiction here, for the sign
of the zodiac under which Mr. Kawabata was in fact born fell in 1935 and
not again until 1947.
The rest of the chapter combines, with some revision, the larger
portions of two of Mr. Kawabata’s newspaper articles.
Nozoki, a sort of tentative challenge.
Though the rules are complex, the basic object of Renju is to line up
five Go stones in a row.
The expression “star,” hoshi, refers to any one of the nine points
marked on the board for handicap stones (of which there are none in this
