How a game of shogi ends.

On this page and the ones it links to, the attacker is Black, the defender is White, and the attacker’s own king is off the board, as in every Japanese brinkmate collection. Every position below has been checked by the engine at build time: the threats are real threats, the defences are the only defences, and a false sentence would have stopped the site from building.

The ladder

Check 王手 ōte

An attack on the king. The defender must answer it at once: move the king, capture the checking piece, or put something in the way. A check is not progress by itself; a check that leads nowhere hands the tempo back. The proverb says ōte wa oitte, “a check is a chasing move,” and it is not a compliment.

Mate 詰み tsumi

A check with no answer. Every mate is one of a handful of shapes with names, and the mating patterns page shows the seven the app’s puzzles are built on. Learning them is how you start seeing a mate three moves before it happens, which is the whole point of the next two rungs.

Threatmate 詰めろ tsumero

A position where the attacker will mate next move if the defender does nothing. It is not check, so the defender may ignore it and do something else, but the something else had better be a mate of their own. Threatmate is the unit the whole endgame is counted in: “that move is a threatmate” means “I have one move to spare.”

The distinction that matters: a threatmate can be defended. Three of White’s drops above parry it, and the engine confirms that no other move does. When the defender has no such move at all, the position has climbed one rung.

Brinkmate 必至 hisshi

A threatmate with no defence. Whatever the defender does, mate follows, so the game is decided even though no check has been given. Reaching a brinkmate is the practical goal of an attack: you do not need to see the mate, you need to see that every reply allows one.

The only escape from a brinkmate is to mate first. That is why the attacker’s own king matters so much, and why the brinkmate page spends as long on the defender’s counter-checks as on the shapes themselves.

Counting moves 一手すき・N手すき

A threatmate is a position one free move from mate: itte-suki, “one move of slack.” Two free moves from mate is nite-suki, and so on. Both sides have a count, and the side whose count is lower wins if it is their turn and their king is not in the other side’s count. Learning to count is a procedure, not a talent, and it has its own page: speed counting.

Z ゼット

A king that cannot be mated with the pieces the attacker has, however many checks they give. Japanese players call the shape Z, for zettai, “absolutely.” A player whose king is Z can ignore every threat and attack; a player facing a Z king has to break the shape with quiet moves before a check will do anything. Most castle-breaking is the art of turning a Z king into one that is not.

Sudden death 頓死 tonshi

Getting mated in a position you thought was safe. Almost every sudden death has the same cause: the player counted the opponent’s attack as two moves away when it was one, or thought their king was Z when it was not. The cure is the counting page, and the daily tsume, which trains the eye that sees the mate coming.

Three questions, every move

1. Is my king in a threatmate? If the opponent could mate me next move, I must answer it, unless I can mate first.
2. Can I mate, or make a brinkmate? If yes, the game is over; play it.
3. If neither, who is faster? Count both sides. Attack if my count is lower and my king is not in danger; defend if it is not.

Strong players ask these in this order on every move of the endgame, and the middlegame ends the moment the answer to the first one stops being “no.”

The ladder in five moves

The brinkmate above, played out against the most stubborn defence. Step through it and name each rung as it passes.

Five moves, one check. That ratio is normal: most of the endgame is quiet moves that take squares away, and the checks come at the end.