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Does 玉/王 primarily distinguish (i) sente from gote or (ii) junior from senior?

#1

Thank you for a very helpful learning/training resource. I am a newcomer/初心者.

As best I have understood so far:

1) the 11/1一　square/マス目 is defined as top-right from the perspective of sente/先手 ... so bottom-left from the perspective of gote/後手。(Your coordinates training page, lishogi.org/training/coordinate , does an _excellent_ job of reinforcing this convention as well as fostering faster recognition of the kanji for 1-9, thank you!)
This definition might be equivalently stated in the following terms:
1b) sente's home camp/jijin/自陣 is in ranks 7-9 / 七段〜九段 ... and
sente's opponent camp/tekijin/敵陣 is in ranks 1-3 / 一段〜三段

2) in the kifu/棋譜、sente (& gote) moves are (respectively) identified with the filled/blackened ☗ (& vacant/outlined ☖) pentagonal-shape of a koma/駒。

What is not so clear to me is the apparent association of gyokushou/玉将 with sente.
This association is consistently depicted in the two icons/buttons that are tapped/clicked to select either sente/☗/玉 or gote/☖/王。

(Q1) Is it a universal shogi convention that sente plays with the gyokushou/玉将 king-piece or is this merely a convenient convention adopted for lishogi?

For me the ambiguity arises from the translation of 玉将 as "junior player or challenger" in contrast to 王将 as "senior player or reigning player or defender".

Since the choice of which player makes the first move (sente) is traditionally made using furigoma/振り駒、
(Q2) is it the universal practice that the player winning that five pawn toss also selects the king-piece marked 玉将？

I suppose you could say that I am currently confused as to whether the 玉/王 _primarily_ distinguishes
(i) sente from gote OR
(ii) junior from senior.

Thank you for your comments that clarify which convention is local to lishogi players/kishi/棋士 and which is global across the shogi world/kikai/棋界。

#2

For amateur players, the distinction between 玉将/gyokusho and 王将/osho is meaningless. Most amateur players don't care about that. Also, gyokusho and osho have nothing to do with sente and gote. When professional players play in official tournaments, it is customary for the lower-ranked players sit at 下座/shimoza and use gyokusho. If the players are of the same rank, the younger player uses gyokusho.
Most players, even in spoken and written language, refer to the king exclusively as "玉/gyoku" and rarely as "王/ou".

#3

Thank you for those clarifying comments. From your remarks I interpret the following two answers:

(Q1) The icon pair: sente/☗/玉 & gote/☖/王 is merely a convenient convention local to lishogi.
(Q2) No. Sente may play with either (玉 or 王) piece.

#4

sente/☗/king & gote/☖/king is an old convention, not exclusive to lishogi, but I don't think it's widely known. This convention probably originated from 駒落ち/piece-handicap and 定先/josen, but it's a bit tricky to explain. It's simpler to think of 玉/gyoku as a piece used by a lower-ranked player.

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