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Learning Opportunities

This puzzle can be solved using the following concepts. Practice using these concepts and improve your skills.

Statement

This is a port of the board game Dice Shogi, which is a variant of Minishogi.
Click here for the referee.
Shogi pieces are from Lishogi and overall graphics inspired by Lishogi.

  The Goal

The goal is to checkmate your opponent's king.

  Rules

Minishogi rules apply.

Grid:
Game is played on a 5x5 board. There can be also pieces on the players' "hands".
Each player begins with a set of 6 pieces: King, Gold General, Silver General, Bishop, Rook and Pawn.
The board starting position:


  • Player 0(red/black) has pieces at the bottom and Player 1(blue/white) has pieces at the top.
  • For the Player 0, at the bottom from left are: King, Gold General, Silver General, Bishop, Rook. Pawn is at the front of the King.
  • For the Player 1, at the top from left are: Rook, Bishop, Silver General, Gold General, King. Pawn is at the front of the King.
  • Black always goes first and white goes next. Player rolls die on each turn.

Movement:
Each piece has its own movement:
  • King (王,K) moves one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally).
  • Rook (飛,R) moves as many squares as desired horizontally or vertically.
  • Bishop (角,B) moves as many squares as desired diagonally.
  • Gold General (金,G) moves one square in any direction: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Except it cannot move backward diagonally.
  • Silver General (銀,S) moves one square diagonally or one square forward.
  • Pawn (歩,P) moves one square forward.
  • Promoted Silver General (,+S), Promoted Pawn (と,+P) move like Gold General.
  • Promoted Rook (Dragon,龍王,+R) has movements of Rook and King.
  • Promoted Bishop (Horse,龍馬,+B) has movements of Bishop and King.

Promotion:
Whenever a piece reaches, moves on, or moves out of its furthest rank (row) (rank 5 for black player and rank 1 for white player), it can be promoted. Promotions are optional except for pawn, it has to be promoted when it reaches the furthest rank.
  • Rook promotes into Promoted Rook (Dragon).
  • Bishop promotes into Promoted Bishop (Horse).
  • Silver General promotes into Promoted Silver General.
  • Pawn promotes into Promoted Pawn.
  • King, Gold General cannot be promoted.

Captures:
When a player's piece goes into a square occupied by the opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is captured and goes unpromoted into the player's hand. In the subsequent turns, the player may choose to drop the piece onto the board under his control.

Drops:
On any turn, instead of moving a piece on the board, a player may select a piece in his hand and place it unpromoted on any empty square on the board, under his control. There are some restrictions:
  • Pawn cannot be placed onto its furthest rank (row).
  • Pawn cannot be placed onto file (column) that already contains player's unpromoted pawn.
  • Pawn cannot deliver checkmate in the same turn. But it can do so in the subsequent turns.
  • Dropped piece on the furthest rank (row) doesn't get promoted in the same turn. But it may be promoted in the subsequent turns.

Check, checkmate and stalemate:
If player's king is under attack of opponent's piece and would be captured in the next turn, it is in check. The player must remove the check. If he cannot, then his king is checkmated and the player loses game.
If player's king isn't in check, but also the player doesn't have any legal move, then it is stalemate, and the player also loses game.

Dice rolling and movement:
In Dice Shogi, at the start of a turn, the player rolls a die. The value of the die is the index of file (column) the piece must go to or be dropped to. The index starts from 5 from left to 1 to right, like the board notation.

Player has rolled 5. He can move the Pawn in column 5, or move the Bishop to column 5.


Player has rolled 2. He can move the Silver General to column 2.


NOTES:
  • If a player rolls 6, then he can move to or drop to on any file (column).
  • If a player doesn't have legal move with the rolled file (column), then he can move to or drop to on any other file (column).

  Expert Rules

  • Game lasts at most 300 rounds. If no checkmate is delivered by then, the game is draw.
  • If seed=0, then all dice rolls are 6, the game becomes standard Minishogi.
  • In the settings you can select western type piece set. You can also select to show sfen notation.
Victory Conditions
  • Deliver checkmate to your opponent's king.
  • Opponent doesn't have any legal moves in his turn (stalemate).
Loss Conditions
  • Your king is checkmated.
  • You don't have any legal moves in your turn (stalemate).
  • You timeout, crash or give unrecognizable output.

  Game Input

Pieces notation
First player: K - King, G - Gold General, S - Silver General, B - Bishop, R - Rook, P - Pawn, +S - Promoted Silver General, +B - Promoted Bishop, +R - Promoted Rook, +P - Promoted Pawn
Second player: k - King, g - Gold General, s - Silver General, b - Bishop, r - Rook, p - Pawn, +s - Promoted Silver General, +b - Promoted Bishop, +r - Promoted Rook, +p - Promoted Pawn
Initial input
First line: The id of the player(id), 0 - first player, 1 - second player
Second line: boardSize: the number of rows and columns on the board, always 5.
Input for one game turn
boardSize lines: a string of characters representing one line of the board, top to bottom. (.: empty, K: first player king, k: second player king, and so on, see Pieces notation above).
Next line: First player's current hand, or - if he has no pieces in the hand. Examples: -, G, BB
Next line: Second player's current hand, or - if he has no pieces in the hand. Examples: -, g, bb
Next line: Value of the rolled die.
Next line: Last opponent's action or none if first turn of first player.
Next line: actionCount for the number of legal actions for this turn.
Next actionCount lines: a string representing a legal action.
Output
A single line containing the coordinates where you want to play. Or random.
  • For the movement, it is columnFrom rowFrom columnTo rowTo with + for promotion. Examples: 4534, 1425+
  • For the drop, it is Piece * columnTo rowTo. Examples: G*33, p*24
  • Output piece notation is not case sensitive.
You can also print message after space following action. Example: 4534 Take this!.
Constraints
Response time first turn is ≤ 1000 ms.
Response time per turn is ≤ 100 ms.

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