The Art Of Shogi Ebook3000
Shogi is sort of like chess in some ways. But the opposite of it in most ways. It seems to be at least 10 times as complex as chess as a result of 'drops'. I made the best first move you are supposed to make in the opening theoretically speaking without knowing this in advance. But after this I had no idea what to do and kept trying to make apparently illegal moves. Pawns capture fowards not diagonally.
Knights can't move sideways or backwards. Most other pieces move like kings. The only pieces I felt comfortable with were the bishops, lances and rooks.would take a really long time to learn; much longer than it takes to learn chess actually, but this may be because of the paucity of good english instruction/teaching resources.and people who have been playing for a while will destroy you very quickly; before you even know what happened.
Just as people who have been playing chess for a while will destroy someone who hasn't yet played a game.not sure if it's worth pursuing unless something like shogi.com comes along in the near the future. Oh yeah, I've tried all three too. They have their pros and cons.Compared with chess:Shogi.1. Pawns are not linked. You have to spend a lot of effort in maintaining a good line.2. 'Drops' can happen anywhere, even behind enemy lines!
You can combine several 'drops' for mating attacks.3. Promotion doesn't really improve your pieces.4. Defence is pretty much stuffing your king in the corner with guards (like castling)5. Hard to form batteries that stretch across the board.As for Chinese chess.1. The 'cannon' = cool x-ray attack2. Only 5 pawns a side. Once they cross the river they can move sideways.3. Continuous sacrifices = no attacking pieces left = draw more likely4.
Kings can't face each other directly. Death stare?5. You can 'immobilize' certain pieces by blocking their paths.If you can't understand Chinese/Japanese, I guess it's pretty hard then. Oh yeah, I've tried all three too. They have their pros and cons.Compared with chess:Shogi.1. Pawns are not linked.
You have to spend a lot of effort in maintaining a good line.2. 'Drops' can happen anywhere, even behind enemy lines! You can combine several 'drops' for mating attacks.3. Promotion doesn't really improve your pieces.4. Defence is pretty much stuffing your king in the corner with guards (like castling)5. Hard to form batteries that stretch across the board.As for Chinese chess.1. The 'cannon' = cool x-ray attack2.
Only 5 pawns a side. Once they cross the river they can move sideways.3. Continuous sacrifices = no attacking pieces left = draw more likely4. Kings can't face each other directly.
Death stare?5. I will be taking some lessons in Beijing this week on xiangqi, but one thing I don't like is that the king is caged in the center.Japanese chess is the most fun, even though it is very difficult to get started.International chess is the most practical as a sport. I think we should have openings randomized instead of players preparing. Fischer's solution was to randomize the pieces, but that means you play a variation of chess.If you randomize openings then you are forcing a player to play the position dealt, not the one they prepared. Promotion doesn't really improve your pieces.Promotion is very important and the first step to win.Especially rook and bishop become very strong when promoting. If you can't understand Chinese/Japanese, I guess it's pretty hard thenStill (because of famous HIDETCHI, making a lot of shogi videos on youtube) shogi become more popular in western world.On 81dojo.com you can also play with westerniced pieces (no kanji).There are about 10 good books in english language. Indeed (compairing with chess) not many, but still you need some time to study them all.
Also there are some german books available. Furtheremore in internet there are a lot of material.And one more thing: shogi can be well played using handicapWhile in chess a piece-handicap is creating a much different game, this isn't the case in shogi. Of course the opening will be much different, but because of reusing captured pieces, the pieces are also mixing in even games, say: looking at a board position in the middle of a game, you can't immediately say if it's handicap or not. You have to search the unused pieces. After my xiangqi introduction, here are my comments.Wow, I thought I knew how moves were made. Not entirely.The knight cannot move forward unless a piece is not in its way, this is called 'breaking the horse's leg'.
So, in Western chess you couldn't move Nf3 or Nc3 first. You would have to move f4 and g4 before playing Nf3 and c4 and b4 before being able to move Nc3.In Xiangqi, there is only ONE place, where you can block a knight.For the move Ng1-f3, only g2 must be empty. So you can do the move g2-g3 and f2-f4 is not needed.Also one pro for Xiangqi: you can give multiple-check (maximum 4 checks at same time).But most bad for Xiangqi are the 'extended rules'. This are absolutely terrible, the worst 'rules' I've ever seen. The still are not real rules, but more a collection of examples. I don't know what you mean by 'extended rules'.
Shogi seems to have the most extended rules and I don't see this as a bad thing.In Xiangqi it could be happen that one piece repeatingly attacks an other piece which can't escape (simplest one a rook along a line attacking a cannon).To avoid having thousand of games ending in draw, such repeating is often not allowed - but there are cases, where it is allowed.This are the 'extended' rules and not clearly defined - and furthermore bad, there are DIFFERENT ones.Read it here:(And that's by far much more than all shogi rules.)Tell me, if you can answer all 104 diagrams correct. A few of them are really hard to explain, where I've asked a Xiangqi lover and also he couldn't answer it and have had to ask one special person.
'This are the 'extended' rules and not clearly defined'Well, then you are saying there are variations.Hmmm, it's hard to name it 'variations'.You should understand when READING it.It's maybe similar to the 50-moves-rule in chess. This rule was created to stop wasted play and it shouldn't change anything in the result, say each won position should be mate after 50 moves after last take or pawn move.Unfortunately that isn't true. With computers we found position which can only be won with more moves. So there was also a time where this rule was changed.Would you call this than a chess variant, when instead 50 moves, 60 moves are allowed?Still, there are asian extended rules and chinese extrended rules making it difficulty to play games for world champion. (Or what you suggest, if maybe amercians are playing 50-moves-rule, while european changed to 60-moves-rule?)Asian and Chinese rules are similar, but not exactly the same. So, to bring this back to the thread, what about shogi do you want to talk about?Don't know.I've read the opening thread and added some words about shogi which I expect could be interested for chess players.I'm a shogi-player - I haven't any questions about shogi (and if, I wouldn't expect answers here). But maybe the chess players here would be interested in knowing anything special which an 'experienced' shogi player can answer.By the way: Chess, Shogi, Xiangqi and also Go are all very nice games(Maybe one is interested into this book: - not from me, I don't earn anything for this advertising)The all have advantages and dissadvantages and I never would say this or that is better.
I only say, currently I prefere shogi. I think we are on the same boat. However, we should learn all 3 games.
I would like to drop pieces in Western chess and xiangqi.All games could get improvements from the other.I remember my first chess game after a long time I didn't play chess. I often felt thinking like the following: 'then I take f7 with my knight, the king takes. And I'm left with a knight less.' In shogi it's so typically to sacrifice pieces to weaken the opponents king position. But in chess you must be much more carefully about not losing any material.
Upon further reading it seems evident to me that shogi and xangi(sp?) are at least 20 times as complex as chess.for example a standard time control shogi game is around 6-9 hours as compared to 2 hours for chess. Competitive players are only going to allot the actual needed time for such activities; if it could be done on a high level in less time why would they bother? This is evidence that it just takes longer to analyze shogi and xanqi(sp?) positions than it does for chess positions.a standard go game lasts even longer than shogi games. 10-15 hours or longer. This doesn't change my assessment that shogi and xangqi are ten times more complex than chess. And go even more complex than shogi and xangqi.I do not know what it means to say 'chess is a much more solid game'.seems to me the japanese chinese and koreans perfected and developed chess and the 'art of board gaming' as far as it can go.
The end result of this particular cultural process, which happened through 1000 years or so, was in fact the board game go.chess came into europe and became the 'mad queen chess' that we all know and love today.chess came into japan, china and korea and became shogi, xangqi and go. Games that are much more complex than modern western chess.this isn't because europeans are stupid and japanese chinese and koreans smart. It's just that for whatever reason they apparently had a much greater and deeper interest in developing 'the art of board gaming'.europe came up with something that was sufficiently complex to entertain and bewilder any human and went no further.
The japanese chinese and koreans went way beyond something that was just sufficiently complex for humans and came up with something that even modern computers cannot handle. I've played all three games mentioned as well as Thai chess called Makruk and Korean chess called Janggi. I see how any of these games can be appreciated if the player knows the basics beyond just rules. I played the games on iPhone and computer software.They all clearly descend from same chess origin. Pieces are similar.
Better Moves For Better Shogi Pdf
Moves are similar. Chinese chess xiangqi, Korean janggi and Japanese shogi have flat pieces with symbols on them. Makruk is very similar to Chinese chess in positioning but uses very familiar carved playing pieces.Shogi is interesting of course. It is indeed more complicated because of the strategy diversity and average games lasting many more moves than average International chess. But the greater complexity does not make a better game. Because it is more complex it is also more 'chaotic', and I don't think it is a good thing. It is less elegant I guess.Chinese chess is actually more precise in that it requires very accurate moves and often losing one piece can mean a lost game.
It is also shorter because pieces are exchanged more often at first. To me it seems there is less room for gradual build up of positional advantage.
There is actually good amount of literature in English language for Xiangqi. But most of it is not sold in print somewhere but rather the American xiangqi organization provides free electronic versions of many instruction books and annotated games on their site.Janggi is almost identical to xiangqi but the pieces have more freedom of movement similar to international chess or shogi. It almost exactly corresponds to the geographic position of Korea in relation to its neighbors when it comes to similarity in chess. You can also decide in what order your minor pieces (Elephant/advisor, horse/knight, and took/chariot) are. You can put them in any order as long as they're same in both sides of the board. King and his guards stay in same position. King is also not shut in its 'palace' in center of the board in first three ranks like in Chinese chess.
There is probably least amount of literature about Korean chess because even in Korea very few people seem to be playing it. Maybe because they take Go/Baduk very seriously.Makruk is like a mix between Korean chess and international chess.
Pieces are similar to Chinese and Korean but there are more pieces that move diagonally and the king is very active in end games. The game pretty much becomes a very intense endgame very quickly and this endgame can last many moves. Aesthetically it is very nice and the pieces are actually on squares on an 8 by 8 board.After having spent much time on each on iPhone apps playing against engine I think that Xiangqi is most balanced and most interesting of all these regional chess variants.
I'd say it is same complexity as international chess.For each of these games you can always find versions which have western chessmen outlines on them so that you don't have to think what symbols identify what on each piece. That's not an issue.The biggest issue is deciding whether any of them are worth investing time in if you already play international chess. One that seems to be most worthwhile is also Chinese chess because apparently so many Chinese and Vietnamese people in their respective countries as well as in diaspora play xiangqi that you'll be able to find tournaments and opponents either if you live in a big city with Chinese or Vietnamese population or if you are willing to travel for events.Perhaps you've heard of the very popular event called World Mind Sports Games. They play international 10x10 checkers, chess, go, bridge, and recently also Chinese chess. Not sure what else.
It is organized by International Mind Sports Association.Still we can be very thankful to colonization and globalization (no sarcasm intended) for having the chess we play as most common in largest number of countries world wide.
Shogi is a very popular traditional part of Japanese culture - with an estimated 20 million Japanese players and more! Shogi and Western chess are very closely related - sharing the same winning objective of enforcing capture (checkmate) of the opponent's king, and some similar movement of the pieces (king, rooks, bishops, knights and pawns).However, one of the most Shogi is a very popular traditional part of Japanese culture - with an estimated 20 million Japanese players and more!
Shogi and Western chess are very closely related - sharing the same winning objective of enforcing capture (checkmate) of the opponent's king, and some similar movement of the pieces (king, rooks, bishops, knights and pawns).However, one of the most distinctive and creative features of shogi is that all captured pieces immediately change sides ( a reflection of change of alliance in past warfare in Japan, when the rules of shogi were codified in the 17th century). All captured pieces become the capturing player's reserves or 'pieces in hand', which can be placed or 'dropped' back onto the board )instead of moving a piece already on the board). In shogi all the pieces are thus kept in play for the whole game, with capturing greatly increasing move possibilities. Consequently almost every game of shogi is exciting.