New Ishida.

Ranging rook, a Quick Ishida · none (the king never moves) · 新石田流 shin Ishida-ryū

The idea

In the Quick Ishida Black usually moves the king to 4h before anything else. Suzuki Daisuke attacked at once, with the pawn to 7d on move seven. For a long time that move was thought to fail, and the Edo-period books already called it bad: after the pawn exchange and the bishop trade, White drops a bishop on 6e that attacks the rook on 7d and threatens to promote.

Suzuki found the answer, a bishop of Black’s own dropped on 5f. If White takes the rook, Black takes the bishop back; after White stops the promotion on 6c with the gold, a second bishop dropped on 5e attacks the rook on 8b and the lance on 1a at once. The line on ja.wikipedia ends with Black, who has given the rook for a bishop, a pawn up and judged to be doing well.

Suzuki won the Masuda Kōzō Award for it, announced in 2005. Shogi Wars, which gives the opening this name, calls it the move that started the recent Ishida boom; English sources call it the Suzuki variation. Moves 18 to 21 have one source.

How it goes together

Both sides’ moves are shown, because this opening is an agreement rather than a system: one player cannot reach it alone, so a one-sided list of moves would be a fiction.

The plan once you are set up

• The Quick Ishida start: 7f, 7e and the rook to 7h, after White has opened the bishop’s diagonal.
• When White pushes 8e, push the pawn to 7d straight away, with the king still on 5i.
• After the exchange and the bishop trade, answer the bishop on 6e with a bishop on 5f.
• If White takes the rook, take the bishop back, and after the gold comes to 6b drop the other bishop on 5e, at the rook and the lance.
• After the pawn drop on 7c, step back to 5f and take the pawn on 3d.

What to watch for

• You give the rook for a bishop. What you get is two working bishops and a pawn; thirdfilerook.jp says Black can meet every White try but that the lines are very hard.
• The line needs White’s pawn on 8e. If White plays the silver to 6b first, or the king to 4b or the edge pawn instead of the rook pawn on its second move, the pawn to 7d at once is not the plan: go for an ordinary Ishida.
• Other ideas on move seven: Sugai Tatsuya’s rook to 7f at once, and, after the pawn to 7d is taken, the king to 4h (Kubo Toshiaki’s new move) or to 5h (Inaba Akira’s) instead of retaking with the rook.

What it is played against

A static rook that opens its bishop and pushes the rook pawn twice. thirdfilerook.jp notes that once the line was found to work, White players began to avoid it: by playing the silver to 6b before the pawn to 8e, or by not pushing the rook pawn on the second move at all. ja.wikipedia, after Kubo Toshiaki’s book, gives the line to move 21.