Shintai

• Objective
• Board
• Play
• Variants

Shintai is played on a traditional goban, shown below.

The basic rules are exactly like Gomoku, where players alternate turns (starting with black) placing their own stones in an attempt to achieve an orthogonal or diagonal line of five uninterrupted stones. However, there is one major exception:

Starting with turn 3, every third turn (both for each player and over the course of the game), you must MOVE one stone already on the board to any other place on the board. You may not pass, and you may not add a stone to the board on this turn. This is the "shintai" part of the game's title ("shintai" can be translated as "movement")

This means that on moves 3, 9, 15, etc, black moves a piece instead of placing one; white moves a piece instead of placing one on moves 6, 12, 18, etc.

NOTE: The game is relatively fair, and helps to undo most, if not all, of the advantage that black receives in Gomoku by playing first and always having equal or more pieces on the board than white. In Shintai, players alternate having more pieces on the board over the course of the game. However, unlike Connect6, where the game is inherently changed, Shintai progresses slower and keeps the general "five-in-a-row" concept alive.

The Shintai concept can be applied to other games too.

For a faster game, every fifth (instead of third) turn is a "moving" turn. This variation populates the board faster and may feel more like classic Gomoku.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is the preferred version of the game. The traditional concept is just too slow.
-Steve