Castles · 左銀冠
Left Silver Crown.
The Left Mino’s final form: the silver lifted to 8g over the king, with golds on 7h and 6g.
How it goes together
Start from a Left Mino: king 8h, silver 7h, golds 5h and 6i, bishop 7g. Push 6f and step the 5h gold up to 6g. Push 8f, lift the silver from 7h to 8g over the king’s head, and bring the 6i gold up into the 7h square the silver has left. The 7h gold now guards the silver above the king, the bishop in front of it and the 6g gold diagonally ahead, and the 6g gold guards the bishop too. Around the king, the bottom rank holds only the knight and the lance. A four-general form, with the right silver on 7g and the bishop moved off, carries the same name; this page builds the three-general one.
A Left Silver Crown is a Left Mino with five more moves: the first eight below are that castle.
Move by move
Black only, from the start position. The first eight moves are the Left Mino; the last five turn it into the crown.
Step through the moves, or press play.
Tap a move to jump to it. Arrow keys work once the board has focus.
Thirteen moves. The silver that sat beside the king in the Left Mino is now above him, guarded by the gold that took its old square.
What it is good against
Attacks from above and in front. The bishop’s head, the weak point of a Left Mino, is now covered: the 8f and 7f pawns in front of the castle are each guarded twice, and the bishop itself by both golds. Against a Ranging Rook Anaguma it is the main line: Japanese sources say the thickness over the king and the way its pieces hold together make simple attacks, such as just trading rooks, fail, and that it can press on the Anaguma’s own head.
Where it breaks
Time, the long diagonal, and the bottom. Thirteen moves leave room for an early attack before the crown is up; against a Left Mino that is still unfinished, the Fujii System is the known way in. The king stands on the long diagonal the ranging rook’s bishop uses, with only the 6f pawn and his own bishop in the way, and the bottom rank is bare: nothing at all guards 6i, so a rook that reaches the back rank meets little.
When to build it
A static rook against a ranging rook in a slow game, above all against a Ranging Rook Anaguma, where ja.wikipedia calls the Silver Crown the mainstream answer. From here a player can go on into the corner and build a Silver Crown Anaguma.
Build it at the board.
The app’s lesson walks the king into a Mino one step at a time, and its review names the castle you were building when a game turned.