Japanese Chess – Shogi – 将棋
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Category: Learn Shogi

  • Shogi Game Notation

    It can be hard to remember how to record a game of shogi. I’ve created a quick cheat sheet below to make life easier.

    The starting player is called “Black”, and the other player is called “White” when playing in English. Black is sometimes called “Sente” and White is sometimes called “Gote”. Don’t let Sente and Gote confuse you. They’re as different as black and white. (No I couldn’t resist.)

    The top of the game record should state important information about the game such as who was Black and who played White. It should also state the date, the players’ rankings, if any, and also what handicap was used. For example: (more…)

  • Japanese Shogi Notation

    First off, this seems like a good place to mention the kanji for shogi. If you go looking up shogi in a japanese dictionary, remember that in Japanese, the pronunciation is actually “shougi” not “shogi”. Shogi has been in English long enough that the “u” was dropped from the name.

    Now for the Japanese notation.

    Don’t let it scare you, but Japanese use kanji. This puts off westerners who get really scared by all those lines. (I wonder, is there a phobia name for this?) Notation for Japanese shogi game records is very similar to western game notations.

    First remember Japanese write two directions. Sometimes they write like in English, that would be from left to right and from top to bottom. Traditionally they write like Chinese, that would be from top to bottom and from right to left. Shogi game records usually are in the traditional top to bottom and from right to left. (more…)

  • The Big Three Shogi Castles

    The Big Three Shogi Castles
    Shogi castling involves forming a stronghold to protect the king. Most shogi pieces don’t move very fast, but as soon as a pieces start getting captured, lightning fast plays involving drops change the pace of the game. Placing your king in a castle allows you to focus on attack.

    The most deadly location for a king in shogi is the square it starts on. Dead center means a dead king! Get the king off to a corner and protected, quickly.

    Shogi castles keep the rook and king apart. A common tactic of advanced shogi players is setting up a split with the king and rook so that a knight or other piece attacks both the rook and king. Of course, losing the rook in such a split makes winning more of a challenge.

    Mino Castle

    Mino Shogi Castle
    A properly formed mino castle is strong during creation
    and has several alternative forms available after creation.

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  • Sitting King

    As I’ve mentioned many times, shogi is an ancient game. Millions of people have played shogi over its 800 year history. Anything with that much history is bound to pick up some traditions. One of the greatly loved traditions are the shogi proverbs.

    Sitting King

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