Castles · 一直線穴熊
Beeline Anaguma.
Straight into the Anaguma against a Central Rook: the right side stays home, and 8h stays open so the bishop can still drop back.
How it goes together
The king walks to the corner as in any Static Rook Anaguma: 6h and 7h, then 8h once the bishop has moved up to 7g, then the lance steps to 9h and the king drops into 9i. The 6f pawn closes the bishop’s diagonal, the 5h gold climbs to 6g and the 6i gold to 7h. The right silver never goes out to attack: it comes back from 4h to 5i and up to 6h. The left silver stays on 7i, and 8h stays empty, so the bishop on 7g keeps a square to retreat to. The 7h gold and the 6h silver guard the 6g gold, and the 7i silver guards both the 7h gold and the 6h silver.
Move by move
Black only, in the order of a Japan Shogi Association column on this plan, from a lecture by Aoshima Mirai: the rook pawn, the king and the bishop first, then the hole, then the golds and the right silver.
Step through the moves, or press play.
Tap a move to jump to it. Arrow keys work once the board has focus.
Sixteen moves, with 8h still open. Later the 7i silver can close it, and with the 6h silver dropping back to 7i the castle becomes the Matsuo Anaguma this plan aims for (ja.wikipedia).
What it is good against
Simple, and the same every game. The JSA column recommends it because the moves are not hard and the goal is clear: castle hard, then attack. Leaving 8h open is the key, as Shogi Wars also says. When White attacks the bishop’s head with a silver on 7e and a pawn on 7f, the bishop drops back to 8h; with 8h closed it would have to go to 6h, where, the column says, it gets in the right silver’s way and lets White break through in the centre. ja.wikipedia traces the idea to a 2008 game in which Toyoshima Masayuki held the silver back from 8h to keep the bishop’s retreat.
Where it breaks
It leans to one side. The Central Rook can swing its big pieces round to shake it, the rook to 4d and the bishop out to 1e for example, and then Black’s own bishop and right knight are hard to use (ja.wikipedia). The Central Rook side often answers with an Anaguma of its own.
When to build it
A static rook against a Central Rook, whether it is the Cheerful Central Rook played second or a Central Rook played first: Hasebe Kōhei’s 2020 book covers both. The JSA column of 2018 recommends it to amateurs, and ja.wikipedia notes the same headlong Anaguma against the Third File Rook.
Build it at the board.
The app’s lesson walks the king into a Mino one step at a time, and its review names the castle you were building when a game turned.