Life In 19x19

My first shogi checkmate. I haven't even learnt (memorized) the properties of all the different pieces yet, let alone the promotion intricacies or illegal moves.
Against the bot at the easiest setting. No idea what I'm doing.

Congrats! I purchased a tsumeshogi app (it's in Japanese, but searching for tsumeshogi on the iTunes App Store it's easy to find) so I learnt a few standard patterns... But I still suck big time at shogi

Hi RBerenguel,

Thanks. This one is a freebie.
You can try it, too.

I'm used to the Knight and Rook in Chess and Xiangqi,
so I find it difficult to get used to the "downgraded" knight and lance.
(Yes, I know there's still the rook. )

I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

Shogi flabbergasts me.

I've been playing it for a bit now. I've read exactly one book on the subject, John Fairbairn's Shogi for Beginners. Which is a beginner book explaining the rules and basic tactics of the game.

I've never had lessons, I've never read any strategy guides online, and since I only ever play turn-based online, I've never reviewed a game with a stronger player.

And so most of the game, I feel totally lost. I know the rules. I know the goal of the game. I understand some very basic strategy. It is good to capture pieces, it is good if your pieces can move freely, and if your opponent's pieces cannot, that kind of thing. But that's it.

So all I do is read ahead and try to evaluate of the end results of the lines I read are good. Again, not based on any real knowledge of what makes a position good, but on basic strategic principles and on feel.

And apparently I'm doing something right, because I recently won my first ever game against a dan player.

But the feeling is totally different. When playing go, I can explain, to myself, why a result is good or bad. In terms of territory, influence, thickness, aji, light/heavy, life and death. In shogi, I haven't got a clue. I don't even know the words (which no doubt there are).

It really makes you think about what the value of books or lessons is. Apparently, you do not need books/lessons/reviews to get somewhere. Just some reading ahead and playing experience can get you quite a long way. But one the other hand, the knowledge from lessons and books will give apparently you a framework within which to think. It allows you to explain things to yourself, to file away complicated position under simple terms.

It's like driving in a car without headlights. You can get there just the same, but in a lot of situations you'll feel really uncomfortable, you just hope it'll all work out, and you may completely miss obvious things because they're invisible to you

Herman, prior to shogi, did you have any experience
with any of the other chess variants ?

For example, familiarity with chess can help with xiangqi,
(and vice versa) at least at the novice levels.

@EdLee: No, not really. We had a chess and a draughts board at home when I was a kid, and I learned the rules of both games, but I never played either one much. Go is the first mind sport which I seriously learned and played, and by now I certainly have played both shogi and xiangqi more often than I have played chess (According to the turn-based site I play at, I have about 150 games played in both shogi and xiangqi. I've played some other casual games of both here and there, but I guess I've played at most some 200 games in either of them)

EdLee wrote:I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

What I suspect is that the approximate idea of the game traveled long distances with the traders doing that not completely understanding the game (maybe taking a set in their trade goods and they could "sort of" demonstrate the moves).

On the hand, we should be aware that these games do change over time. In "Western chess" the pieces don't all move quite the way they did even just 500 years ago.

EdLee wrote:For example, familiarity with chess can help with xiangqi,
(and vice versa) at least at the novice levels.

This is very true BTW. At the site I play Shogi, the top of the rating list is held by a very strong chess player (an IM with a rating of 2500), ranking above several dan level shogi players. I wonder how he would do if he went to a real life shogi event.

I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

A couple of points:

1. The mutations are unlikely always to be arbitrary. In shogi it is believed the emphasis on short moves reflected the nature of the Japanese terrain (lack of flat plains) and thus the nature of Japanese warfare. Similarly, the idea of prisoner exchange and/or swapping sides was a major element in Japanese campaigns, and is believed to be reflected in the idea of drops.

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants. Like chess itself they are variants of some earlier game, presumably chaturanga.

The strongest western shogi player is probably still Larry Kaufmann, who is now a chess Grandmaster. He devoted a lot of time to shogi, in particular to memorising lots of opening lines, in chess fashion. But he never got close to pro level and always needed a significant handicap. One problem that chess players have with shogi is that the idea of the centre four squares being the main focus does not apply in shogi. There it is the whole of the centre rank. The large range and greater complexity of castle formations also create problems, as move order and aji become major considerations. Timing is also rather different in shogi compared to chess, and many strategic elements such as this are actually closer to go than to chess.

John Fairbairn wrote:

I find it quite amusing that given the same ancestral game,
people just added seemingly arbitrary mutations,
resulting in the current chess variants.

A couple of points:

1. The mutations are unlikely always to be arbitrary. In shogi it is believed the emphasis on short moves reflected the nature of the Japanese terrain (lack of flat plains) and thus the nature of Japanese warfare. Similarly, the idea of prisoner exchange and/or swapping sides was a major element in Japanese campaigns, and is believed to be reflected in the idea of drops.

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants. Like chess itself they are variants of some earlier game, presumably chaturanga.

The strongest western shogi player is probably still Larry Kaufmann, who is now a chess Grandmaster. He devoted a lot of time to shogi, in particular to memorising lots of opening lines, in chess fashion. But he never got close to pro level and always needed a significant handicap. One problem that chess players have with shogi is that the idea of the centre four squares being the main focus does not apply in shogi. There it is the whole of the centre rank. The large range and greater complexity of castle formations also create problems, as move order and aji become major considerations. Timing is also rather different in shogi compared to chess, and many strategic elements such as this are actually closer to go than to chess.

What strikes me from shogi is how brutal attacks can become, chaining kills and drops to overwhelm the opponent (and then sometimes, suddenly, being dropped something and checkmated in a flash)

@RBerenguel: Yes, very much this!

Shogi feels like fighting on a narrow beam or something. Carefully probing, then the smallest loss of balance quickly escalates, where you're desperately trying to hang in there as your opponent lands punch after punch.

But the opponent also, in the attack, unbalances himself, and a careless mistake can turn the tables so quickly.

Against the same dan player I beat, I had another good game going. I was on the attack, then made a mistake, lost tempo, and suddenly I'm on the defensive and not much later my position collapsed and I was force to resign.

So frustrating, but so exhilarating!

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants.

Right; I didn't mean "chess" in the sense of "Western chess", but in the sense of 棋, for which there is no single equivalent English word, is there ?

Chaturanga

EdLee wrote:

2. Shogi and xiangqi are not chess variants.

Right; I didn't mean "chess" in the sense of "Western chess", but in the sense of 棋, for which there is no single equivalent English word, is there ?

Chaturanga

Funny, I have always named shogi, xiangqi as chess variants, but not thinking about them as some bastardised chess, but as variations from the earliest tree of chaturanga or before already, i.e. totally different from, say, Monster Chess or Chess960.

RBerenguel wrote:Funny, I have always named shogi, xiangqi as chess variants, but not thinking about them as some bastardised chess, but as variations from the earliest tree of chaturanga or before already, i.e. totally different from, say, Monster Chess or Chess960.

Exactly.

Shogi can definitely explode tactically sometimes, in a matter of three moves. Sometimes my mind just shuts down and I have to keep trying to force my head to keep working as it keeps shouting "this is too much!"