Yagura.

Static rook · castles into Yagura · 矢倉 yagura

The idea

When both players keep their rooks on the right, both castle on the left, and the natural castle there is the Yagura. So a Yagura opening is really a whole game type: two symmetrical fortresses, ten quiet moves each, and then an attack on the side where the pieces are.

It has been the main battleground of professional shogi for a century and the move orders are studied to great depth. For a beginner the lesson is simpler: build the castle without losing time, and bring the right silver up to 3g to attack.

How it goes together

The plan once you are set up

• Build in the order that keeps you safe at every step: silver 6h, golds 7h and 6g, king last. A king that arrives early in a half-built castle is a target.
• Then attack on the right with the pieces that are not in the castle: silver to 3g and 4f, knight to 3g, pawn to 3e. The 4f silver and 3g knight attack is the classic beginners’ plan.
• Trade the bishops only if your castle is finished and theirs is not.
• Attack the opponent’s Yagura where it is thin: the head of the 3c silver, the edge file, the 2d square.

What to watch for

• Move order. Yagura players lose games in the first fifteen moves by playing a natural-looking move a turn too early. Learn one order and keep to it.
• The 6f pawn. Once you have pushed it you cannot easily exchange bishops on your terms.
• A ranging rook opponent. If the rook swings left, the Yagura is the wrong castle; go to a Mino on the left, or into the corner.

What it is played against

Another static rook. Against a ranging rook the same moves lead somewhere else, so check where the opponent’s rook is by move five.

The Yagura lines, and a bishop that takes four moves

The lines that grow out of this opening have pages of their own. For Black: the Silver-37, which starts with the silver this page ends on, and the Waki System, the Morishita System and Spearing the Sparrow, which grow from the same position; Crab Silvers and the Static Bishop Left Mino Rapid Attack attack a Yagura without building one. For White: the Yonenaga, Nakahara and Akutsu Rapid Attack Yagura and the Yagura Central Rook. One more idea is a route rather than an opening.

Four-Move Bishop (四手角)

In the Yagura, Black’s bishop has to leave 8h so that the king can castle.

The Four-Move Bishop keeps it instead of trading it: it goes to 7i, then out to 4f, back to 3g and on to 2f, four moves in all. ja.wikipedia says it belongs to the double Complete Yagura, the castle with all four generals, and to old joseki books, that White often took the same route to 8d against the Silver-37, and that it has faded from modern play.

The board is the end of a line from one source in which both players do it: two Complete Yaguras, exactly mirrored, with Black’s bishop on 2f and White’s on 8d. Whoever trades the bishops loses a move, so nobody does, and the same source shows that neither side can break through from here: the game ends in a draw by repetition.

Shogi Wars, for its part, warns the Yagura player not to let the formation be built.