So I went to a go night at a pub close to my old university to meet up with an old pal of mine. I was there a bit early and discovered two Japanese students playing shogi. After their game they asked me if I knew the game and I told them I started playing a year ago but was of master strength in chess. They told me they were 1 dan and 2 kyu, respectively, so I asked if they would play me. I was quite curios to see how I would do against players that strong - after all it is very diffucult to get a game like that in Germany at all.
To cut the long story short the 1 dan wiped the floor with me. First, in an even game, I allowed a bishop exchange which he immediately dropped back to bust me. Then I played him on a handicap of bishop and rook (which is probably 9 stones) and embarrassed myself when I lost a lot of material because I mixed up the kanji of two pieces...
So then I played the 2 kyu even. I don't know if he went easy on me but he played the joseki very quietly instead of trying some aggro stuff on me. So I managed to get into a normal middle game with a castled king. To my surprise I later managed to start a big attack. I sacrificed some more stuff to strip his king of defenders and checkmated him. While I thought that I played unsound, the 1 dan seemed to agree because he only showed us how I could have checkmated even more quickly
It's been quite an amazing experience for me. I only wish I could manage that in go as well. On the other hand, shogi is so close to chess that a lot of skills overlap, which is probably why I'm not an absolute beginner.
A very nice experience. Later on I lost against my 3 dan go pal on nine stones...
