What is Shogi? — The appeal of Japanese Chess
Are you interested in Shogi (Japanese chess)?
Shogi is a two-player board game. The object is to take each other’s kings.
For this purpose, two players fight with 20 pieces each at the beginning.
Shogi has a similar rule as chess but there are some differences as well. One of the unique rules is that you can reuse a piece taken from your opponent as your piece. This rule makes Shogi more interesting and exciting.
In addition, Shogi is a game that men and women of all ages can enjoy. And they don’t need the luck to win if they are good at it.
Also, there are plenty of options to play Shogi for free, online or offline. Even if you don’t have a Shogi board and pieces, you can play Shogi with an application if you have a computer or a smartphone.
Rules of Shogi
Some detailed explanations are necessary, but the rules are simple. The following points should be especially remembered.
- The goal of the game is to capture the opponent’s king.
- Players should move or drop one piece per turn.
- A piece taken from the opponent can be reused as your piece.
The overall explanation of Shogi is long, so I wrote it in another story.
The above story is a summary of the minimum information needed to learn Shogi. Therefore, if you want to know more details, please read my book.
Origin
The origin of Shogi is a game called Chaturanga, which was born in India 4,000 years ago. Not only Shogi but also Western chess and Chinese chess (Xiangqi) are derived from Chaturanga. In the past, Shogi players used many pieces in the Shogi game. Over a long period, the current rules were completed.
About 400 years ago, we started playing Shogi with 40 pieces, and a Shogi board with 9 rows and 9 columns as it is now. Among the games derived from Chaturanga, Shogi has unique characteristics by the ability to reuse pieces.
Popularity in the world
There are about 6.2 million Shogi players (according to the White Paper on Leisure 2020). Since I created a Twitter account for Shogi in April 2021, I have learned that people of various nationalities enjoy playing Shogi.
USA, Italy, UK, France, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Mozambique.
I think some English speakers find Shogi difficult to learn, because of the Kanji (Chinese characters) written on the pieces.
Please don’t worry about it. Because I easily learned Shogi rules when I was 7 years old. Although back then I didn’t know most of the Kanji written on the pieces.
So I think anyone can understand Shogi rules even though they don’t know Kanji.
How to play Shogi today
To play Shogi with an opponent, you need a Shogi board and pieces. However, you can play Shogi on your computer or smartphone without the Shogi board and pieces if you use the Shogi applications below.
So if you were interested in Shogi and learned the rules, you can start Shogi immediately for free. I summarized a list of recommended applications in the table below.
I recommend PiyoShogi for beginners. Because of 40 subdivided levels in PiyoShogi, players can enjoy it from beginner to senior.
Of course, playing Shogi with a board and pieces will give you a deeper understanding and appeal of Shogi. You can buy Shogi materials on Amazon.com. I hope that Shogi fans will increase!
