to prevent his phoenix being captured on the next move. In other words, a swallow cannot be dropped to give immediate checkmate. Check and mate When a player makes a move such that the opponent's phoenix could be captured on the following move, the move is said to give check to the phoenix; the phoenix is said to be in check. If a player's phoenix is in check and no legal move by that player will get the phoenix out of check, the checking move is also mate, and effectively wins the game. A player is not allowed to give perpetual check. This is not a rule in itself, but arises from the repetition rule. Either the checker has to break off the checking, or the checked side has to stop evading, after which his phoenix is captured. Repetition The rule for repetition (千日手 sennichite) in tori shogi is that if the same position occurs three times with the same player to play by repetition of moves, the player starting the sequence must vary the move. For two positions to be considered the same, the pieces in hand must be the same, as well as the position on the board. Game end A player who captures the opponent's phoenix wins the game. In practice this rarely happens, as a player will resign when checkmated, as otherwise when loss is inevitable. A player who makes an illegal move loses immediately. (This rule may be relaxed in casual games.) Handicaps Games between players of disparate strength are often played with handicaps. In a handicap game, one or more of White's pieces is removed before the start of play, and White plays the first move of the game. Note that the pieces removed at the beginning play no further part in the game—they are not available for drops. The imbalance created by this method of handicapping is not as strong as it is in chess, because material advantage is not as powerful in tori shogi as in chess. Common handicaps, in increasing order of size, are as follows: Remove White's left quail Remove White's falcon Two pieces: remove White's falcon and left quail Three pieces: remove White's falcon and both quails Other handicaps are also occasionally used. The relationship between handicaps and differences in rank is not universally agreed upon. Game notation The method used in English-language texts to express shogi moves was