Castles · 串カツ囲い
Skewered Cutlet.
An Anaguma with the king and lance swapped: the king stands on 9h on top of his own lance, like a cutlet on a skewer.
How it goes together
The king walks to 8h and then one step left to 9h, on top of the lance. The left silver comes up to 8h beside him, the left gold steps across to 7i, and the right gold travels the bottom rank, 4i to 5i to 6i, and climbs to 7h. Before the king goes in, the bishop has gone back to 6h and the right silver out to 6f. The 8h silver guards the 9g pawn over the king and the lance below him; the two golds guard each other, the silver and the bishop.
Move by move
Black only, from the start position, in the order of the Japan Shogi Association’s castle column. The bishop and the right silver move before the king goes in. The bishop keeps 6h, so the right gold walks along the bottom rank, through 5i and 6i, and comes up to 7h last.
Step through the moves, or press play.
Tap a move to jump to it. Arrow keys work once the board has focus.
Eighteen moves. The column calls the castle complete here; in the professional game it starts from, the silver had also come back to 7g.
What it is good against
Speed off the diagonal. From 8h the king reaches 9h in one move, where an Anaguma needs the lance up, the king down and the silver across, the JSA column says, and it calls the castle very solid. ja.wikipedia adds that the king can run upward against an attack from the side, and that two moves, the knight to 7g and the king to 8i, turn it into a Millennium.
Where it breaks
The edge and the lance. The lance under the king does nothing: it cannot guard the king, and with the king on its file it cannot attack either. That makes the edge weak, and the JSA column shows how quickly it tells: once a pawn has been exchanged on 9f, a pawn dropped on 9g is check at once. Shogi Wars calls it much weaker than an Anaguma, and ja.wikipedia counts five more moves of Black’s own to turn it into one.
When to build it
A static rook castle against a ranging rook. The JSA column and Shogi Wars both say it came in as a way out of the Fujii System’s attacks along the bishop’s diagonal. The column’s example is Habu Yoshiharu’s, against Kubo Toshiaki in game 3 of the 2001 Ōza title match. Shogi Wars files it with the Left Mino, though every source compares it with the 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.