SHOO

Copyright (c) 1999 David Andrew, Justin Kalef and Chris Kidd

This game is played on a 9x9 square board with the following setup:

HOME BASE - The 3x3 area where the player's travelers start. HORSE - A special neutral piece that can be mounted by travelers, see below.  First player has 4 horses off-board, second player has 5. A horse slides any number of empty cells on any directions - there is no jumping. A horse cannot enter on either home base. A horse is free if it is not mounted by any traveler. A horse can be dropped on any empty cell not inside a home base. The dropped horse - in the next move - is only free for the player that dropped it. After that, if it is not used, becomes free. A free horse can be retired, i.e., it can be removed permanently from the board. To do that, the player must have a traveler (mounted or not) adjacent to the retiring horse. TRAVELER - A single stone. A traveler can move to an adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) empty cell. After entering the adversary home base, a traveler cannot move out. A traveler can move into a cell occupied by a free horse, and become a mounted traveler.  A mounted traveler moves like the horse. A traveler can dismount a horse, by moving the traveler to an adjacent empty cell. The horse becomes immediately free! A traveler can capture a horse which is mounted by an adversary traveler if it adjacent to them. If so, he places the adversary traveler on an adjacent empty cell (from the horse's cell), mounts the horse and (optionally) moves out. SHOOING - If two friendly travelers are adjacent to an enemy traveler which is not mounted, then that traveler is shooed, i.e., the other player must move that traveler and remove the shoo. If the traveler cannot move to remove the shoo, the piece is removed from board, and must be dropped on any empty cell adjacent to his home base (which is not shooed). If this is still not possible, then the piece should be dropped on some adjacent empty cell from those adjacent to his home base, and so forth... A dismounted traveler cannot move into a shoo. If several shoos exists, the player must remove one per turn on his choice. A piece inside the adversary home base cannot be shooed! MOVE - On each turn, each player can do one of the following things: Remove a shoo Move a traveler (mounted or not) Move a free horse Drop one of his off-board horses Retire a free horse. Mount a traveler (i.e., moving it into a free horse) Dismount a traveler (i.e., moving it out of the horse) Capture a horse. GOAL - Wins the player that first occupies the adversary home base with his travelers.

An example The mounted traveler at i7 slides to cell [1] and shoos the black traveler. Since it must remove the shoo, it must move to the only empty cell adjacent to its home base, cell [2]. Shoo is the mechanism to avoid the drawish tactic of keeping one or more travelers inside its own home base.

Some variants proposed by David Andrew: You may wish to try out the following variants: i) playing with 7 rather than 9 horses; ii) when a piece has been hushed, either that you lose the move altogether or (worse) that the piece that is hushed is shooed off - to the player's stable; and iii) you keep the rule of safety, that prevents travelers in their home area being shooed (off), but allow travelers to leave the home area again, taking the risk that they will subsequently be shooed off, of course. Or, there may be other variants that occur to you.

For more information (including some examples), check this webpage:

What can I do (and not do) in one move?

The general rule here is: If it's not forbidden, it's permitted. Here is an example of a valid 'multiple' move: you capture an opponent's horse, then ride away to a square from which, in the same move, you shoo your opponent. This said, there is the general restriction that: You can't get something for nothing. To illustrate: there is the rule (see dismounting above) that says you cannot hold onto a horse from which you have just dismounted. However you may still want to keep control of the now 'free' horse, ie by 'holding' it. To hold onto the horse in a later move, you must use up a move in the game - even if you do not physically move the horse itself. Note: in this case, you would show that you had make the move by specifically saying: 'This horse (pointing to it) is held'.

Length of play

We think that Shoo is less demanding than chess but more eventful than draughts (checkers). We, therefore, suggest that time limits are placed on gameplay. If you have a chess clock that could be used. The alternative is to use the rule (which we believe is part of Go) that no move may take more than a minute. If it does, the game is immediately forfeited.

Comments

The authors would be gratified to field questions and get comments and suggestions for improvement. Please contact David Andrew - 'dandrew@varials.swinternet.co.uk'. If you really get into Shoo and are not too far from Leeds or London, a visit to work through the game may be possible.

Variants

You may wish to try out the following variants: i) playing with 7 rather than 9 horses; ii) when a piece has been hushed, either that you lose the move altogether or (worse) that the piece that is hushed is shooed off - to the player's stable; and iii) you keep the rule of safety, that prevents travellers in their home area being shooed (off), but allow travellers to leave the home area again, taking the risk that they will subsequently be shooed off, of course. Or, there may be other variants that occur to you.