Four more things to play with the same board and pieces. Pick one under Game at the top of the start screen. None of them needs an account.

Handicaps

The oldest way of making a game between unequal players a real game: the stronger side gives pieces away. Choose Shogi and vs Computer, and the handicap row appears.

It is your opponent who gives pieces away, and they move first. You always play the receiving side. The choice of who goes first disappears, because a handicap game settles that already.

Lance

One of the opponent's lances. Nearly level; the first step down

Bishop, rook

One big piece. Losing the rook is the larger handicap of the two

Two pieces

Rook and bishop both. This is where handicap play proper begins

Four, six, eight pieces

Lances and knights go too. At eight the opponent keeps only king, two golds and pawns

Handicaps combine with the strength setting. Samurai at a six-piece handicap is about where someone who has just learnt the moves wins their first game.

Mate problems

You are the attacker, and you must mate with an unbroken series of checks. Twelve problems at mate in one, twelve at mate in three, eight at mate in five.

Solving one

1. Choose Mate problems, then the length and the problem number
2. Click a piece to move it. Pieces in hand are on the stand beside the board
3. A move that is not the answer will not be played. The board does not change; the reason appears at the top left
4. The defence answers by itself. When it is mate: "Mate. That is the answer"

When a move is refused

That move is not a check

In a mate problem nothing but a check is allowed. Find a move that attacks the king

That checks, but the king gets away

The check is fine; the king escapes it. Look for a different one

If you are stuck, Show the answer returns to the diagram and plays the solution through. After that, on to the next problem.

The attacker has no king, which is the proper convention. The defence holds every piece not on the board and not in your hand, so it can interpose as often as it likes — the answer works anyway.

Hasami shogi

Nine pawns each, and you capture by trapping. No king, no promotion. One player or two.

The rules

• Pieces move like rooks: any distance along a rank or file, never jumping over anything
• After your move, an unbroken run of enemy pieces with one of yours at each end is captured. Unbroken, and closed by your own piece at both ends
• A piece in a corner is taken by holding the two squares beside it
• Moving into a gap between two enemies is safe. Only the player who moved captures
• Five captures wins

The count is at the top left. Captured pieces do not go on a stand — in hasami shogi you cannot play them again.

A gap in the run means no capture. Lining up either side of an enemy piece does nothing if there is an empty square or one of your own pieces somewhere in between. This is the rule people get wrong first.

Mawari shogi

Throw pawns like dice and walk a marker round the edge of the board, promoting as it goes. Pure chance — there is no move to choose. Two to four players.

The throw

Press Throw and four pawns land. How they land is how far you go.

Face up

One square for each one

All four face down

Five squares

Standing on end

Ten squares each. Two standing is twenty

Promotion

Rounding one of the four corners promotes your marker one rank: pawn, lance, knight, silver, gold, bishop, rook, king. The first to become a king wins. The corners are marked in gold.

Markers are told apart by the coloured ring under each. Who has reached what is listed on the right. Two markers on one square are nudged apart so both stay visible.

With vs Computer you are marker 1 and the rest are thrown for you. With Two players the device goes round the table and everyone throws their own.