For chess players
Shogi, if you already play chess.
You will recognise the king, the rook, the bishop, the knight and the pawn, and the idea of check and mate. Then a captured piece goes into your hand instead of into a box, and the game you know turns into a different one.
What carries over
- Two players, alternate moves, one piece per move, checkmate wins. Check must be answered. You may not leave your own king in check.
- The rook and the bishop move exactly as in chess. The king steps one square in any direction. Pawns go forward one square.
- Pieces are worth different amounts and trading well matters, though the values are different and, as you will see, trades do not simplify.
What is different
The board and the men
Nine by nine, all one colour, with 20 pieces a side. There is no queen. There are two generals, the gold and the silver, and a lance that runs straight forward. Pieces are flat wedges, all the same colour, and point at the enemy; you tell whose is whose by the direction they face.
The three you do not know: the gold steps one square anywhere except diagonally back; the silver steps forward, diagonally forward and diagonally back; the lance slides straight ahead and never returns. All eight are on the pieces page.
The knight and the pawn are smaller
A shogi knight has two moves, not eight: two squares forward and one to the side, never sideways or back. A pawn moves and captures the same way, straight ahead; there is no double step, no en passant, and no diagonal capture. Pawns therefore face each other on a file and block each other until one is exchanged.
Drops
The one that matters. When you capture a piece it becomes yours, and on a later turn you may place it on almost any empty square as your move. Material never leaves the game; every exchange puts pieces into both hands. There is no endgame of the chess kind, no grinding a small advantage into a won pawn ending: with pieces raining back onto the board, the game is decided by the attack on the king. The drops page has the rules and the four restrictions.
Promotion is for almost everyone
In chess only the pawn promotes, and only on the last rank. In shogi six of the eight kinds promote, in any of the far three ranks, and each to one fixed piece: pawn, lance, knight and silver all become gold-movers; the rook and bishop keep their moves and add a king’s step. Promoted pieces are shown in red. See promotion.
No castling, but castles
There is no castling move. Instead the opening is spent walking the king into a corner and surrounding him with generals, a formation called a castle. Building one takes five to ten moves, and choosing one is the first strategic decision of the game. See castles.
Draws are rare
There is no stalemate draw: a player with no legal move has lost. Repeating a position four times is a draw, unless the repetition was forced by perpetual check, which loses. The only other draw is the impasse, when both kings have run into the enemy camp and the pieces are counted. In practice, well over nine games in ten have a winner.
Notation
Files are counted 1 to 9 from the first player’s right, ranks a to i from the far side, and a move names the piece and where it went: P-7f. The Japanese write the same move ７六歩, and the app’s replay files use 7g7f. See reading moves.
What chess habits to keep, and to drop
| Keep | Drop |
|---|---|
| Counting attackers and defenders on a square. | Simplifying when ahead. Exchanges arm the opponent too. |
| Developing before attacking. | Leaving the king in the centre. There is no safe centre in shogi. |
| Looking for forks and pins. | Treating pawns as small. A pawn in hand is the most useful piece you own. |
| Calculating checks first. | Expecting the knight to defend. It cannot move backward and is easily lost. |
Your first game will be strange.
The bot at its lowest level forgives everything, undo is one tap, and hints show the piece before the square. Ten lessons cover the rest.