Japanese-cultured Dopers: How does Shogi compare with Chess?

[Autolycus]

I played Shogi once about 8 years ago, but it was only once and so I can't remember anything more than the basic rules differences.

How does it compare to chess, both strategically and ummm... strategerically! Is it as good a game? Is it as competitive? I guess this question is pretty much completely open-ended, as long as the question involves some combination of chess and shogi.

(And if AClockworkMelon is reading this, just shut up, because I already know what you're thinking.)

[Grumman]

I haven't played western chess since I was a kid, and I've only played shogi against the computer, but I'll put in my two cents.

The biggest difference I see between the two games is the difference in mobility of the pieces. In shogi you've only got two starting pieces that are more mobile than your king, compared to seven in western chess. Instead, your best form of mobility is drops: your pieces have very high mobility the turn you put them on the board, and then they're stuck moving one square a turn.

[JoseB]

OK, I have lived and studied in Tokyo for 4 years, I play chess and I learned to play shogi over there. I am a better player of chess than of shogi.

My personal opinion: Both games are more or less equally good, and both have strategic depths, but those depths are located in different "oceans", so to speak.

Western chess is, compared to shogi, a very fast game: Plenty of pieces (the bishop, the rook, the queen) are very far-ranging and tremendously powerful. The pawns in western chess are much more flexible than the pawns in other types of chess (western pawns can move two squares when moving for the first time, and capture in a positively funky way by moving diagonally). All of that makes for a game that requires the player to keep in mind *every* square in the board, to watch for threats that might potentially come from anywhere, and with a lot of potential and variety in the moves.

Shogi is a much more "sedate" game -- the pieces tend to be short-range, there is only one rook-equivalent and one bishop-equivalent per side, and quite a few pieces (the knight-equivalent, and something called the "lance") can only move forwards. Also, all pieces, in shogi, can be promoted, not just pawns (and not just by arriving to the last row, but on reaching any of the last 3 rows). However, promotions are fixed (each piece promotes to something fixed beforehand, you cannot choose what you would want to promote your piece to.

In my opinion, this makes for a game where you have to concentrate your strategy into slowly building an offensive at a much more sedate pace than western chess. If western chess can be lightning, shogi is like a glacier relentlessly advancing.

There is also an aspect of shogi that profoundly affects gameplay: Captured pieces can be "parachuted" anywhere on the board (there are some restrictions), becoming pieces for the player who captured them (shogi pieces are not distinguished by colour -- They have all the same shape reminiscent of an arrow, and they point towards the enemy. Pieces have their names printed on them). If a player "parachutes" a piece on the board, he or she forfeits their move in that turn.

You have to keep track of the pieces that you have lost to your enemy, and must keep in mind that one of them might appear, literally, out of the blue to utterly wreck your position.

To sum up: Both games are strategically deep... It is just that the type of strategic thinking needed for each one is different.

[JoseB]

OK, I have lived and studied in Tokyo for 4 years, I play chess and I learned to play shogi over there. I am a better player of chess than of shogi.

My personal opinion: Both games are more or less equally good, and both have strategic depths, but those depths are located in different "oceans", so to speak.

Western chess is, compared to shogi, a very fast game: Plenty of pieces (the bishop, the rook, the queen) are very far-ranging and tremendously powerful. The pawns in western chess are much more flexible than the pawns in other types of chess (western pawns can move two squares when moving for the first time, and capture in a positively funky way by moving diagonally). All of that makes for a game that requires the player to keep in mind *every* square in the board, to watch for threats that might potentially come from anywhere, and with a lot of potential and variety in the moves.

Shogi is a much more "sedate" game -- the pieces tend to be short-range, there is only one rook-equivalent and one bishop-equivalent per side, and quite a few pieces (the knight-equivalent, and something called the "lance") can only move forwards. Also, all pieces, in shogi, can be promoted, not just pawns (and not just by arriving to the last row, but on reaching any of the last 3 rows). However, promotions are fixed (each piece promotes to something fixed beforehand, you cannot choose what you would want to promote your piece to).

In my opinion, this makes for a game where you have to concentrate your strategy into slowly building an offensive at a much more sedate pace than western chess. If western chess can be lightning, shogi is like a glacier relentlessly advancing.

There is also an aspect of shogi that profoundly affects gameplay: Captured pieces can be "parachuted" anywhere on the board (there are some restrictions), becoming pieces for the player who captured them (shogi pieces are not distinguished by colour -- They have all the same shape reminiscent of an arrow, and they point towards the enemy. Pieces have their names printed on them). If a player "parachutes" a piece on the board, he or she forfeits their move in that turn.

You have to keep track of the pieces that you have lost to your enemy, and must keep in mind that one of them might appear, literally, out of the blue to utterly wreck your position.

To sum up: Both games are strategically deep... It is just that the type of strategic thinking needed for each one is different.

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by Autolycus

(And if AClockworkMelon is reading this, just shut up, because I already know what you're thinking.)

[panamajack]

I haven't played Shogi all that much, but a few observations: Going along with what JoseB said, Shogi is a game that is usually won by tactical play in a fairly small area. The strategy involved is in setting up your pieces and carefully preparing an attack. Or your defense – for example, there are actually different varieties of 'castle' in Shogi, but all of them must be built by single moves. A game often begins with both sides developing their castle, along with the other pieces that may be used for their attack. Usually there will be activity in one region of the board that almost amounts to something like a battle. The overall feel is a bit more like a wargame with various armies marching out and fighting on different fronts (compared to the more abstract chess, at least).
Another point of comparison - in chess, the most celebrated sort of win is a sudden checkmate out of nowhere, a brilliant move that almost nobody saw ahead of time. In Shogi, this is nearly impossible since the opponent will likely have a piece to drop and block the mate. Long series of checks (considered a bit amateurish in chess) may end the game. The more clever wins might depend on a series of feints or an attack that looks like it will fail, but instead is designed to force the capture of a key piece that the player can then drop at the right moment to ensure victory.

[takodori]

I think the most notable difference between chess and shogi is that in general the number of possible moves in chess is reducing as a game goes by while that of shogi is increasing as it goes to the endgame mainly due to "Drop" rule. And I' randomly raising the similarities and differences between the two as follows;

• The purpose of the both game is the same. Checkmating the opponent's King.
• Gaining material advantage is important in both games. However, I think it's not so important in shogi as in chess.
• The rate of draw in shogi is much lower than chess in professional games. In shogi, first mover would never try to plan a draw from the start. However, second mover would often plan to draw by repetition in Opening.(In professional shogi, it's not precisely a "Draw" since another game will start after a few minutes of break time by exchanging the first and second mover to decide which to win according to the rules."
• Castling is frequently made in both games. However, chess has only two patterns of castling while shogi has much more varieties.
• Castling in chess only requires one King's move to complete, but it varies in shogi from one move to five King's moves to complete depending on what castle one chooses.
• Chess has 6 kinds of pieces while shogi has 8 sorts.
• Only one kind of pieces can be promoted in chess while 6 sorts can get promoted in shogi. And shogi has much broader promotion zone. So you probably have more chance to promote your pieces in shogi than chess in a game.
• All the pieces except Pawn gan go back in chess while shogi has two more pieces which cannot go back such as Lance and kNight in addition to Pawn.
• Chess use 32 pieces while shogi use 40 ones.
• Chess has 64 squares while shogi has 81 ones on the board.
• Vacant squares at the initial position in chess are 32 squares.(64 minus 32)
  while those of shogi are (41 squares). If you have pieces in hand, there are more than 41 vacant squares on the board and you can drop one of them on any on anywhere vacant as long as it's a legal move in shogi.
• Deploying kNight and Bishop ahead of pawns is often good development in chess in the opening while it is often bad deployment in shogi.
• I don't think there are exact statistics but I feel 20 to 30% of the moves are "Drop" in a game of shogi. And the ratio tends to get higher as a game goes by since you should have almost no piece in hand in the opening. It's important to take care what pieces you will take and when and what piece you will drop on what vacant square from the middle game to the end to win a game.

Hope this helps.

[Autolycus]

Originally Posted by takodori

Hope this helps.

Yes, very much so? 日本人ですか？ (Are you Japanese?)

Oh, and if regular shogi seemed intimidating, check this out! Dai dai (big big) Shogi. It looks like a lot of fun though.

[Autolycus]

Holy shit! Taikyoku (Ultimate) Shogi! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi

"Each player has a set of 402 wedge-shaped pieces of 209 different types. In all, the players must remember 253 different moves."

[takodori]

Originally Posted by Autolycus

Yes, very much so? 日本人ですか？ (Are you Japanese?)

Oh, and if regular shogi seemed intimidating, check this out! Dai dai (big big) Shogi. It looks like a lot of fun though.

Yes, I'm a Japanese. I think Dai dai shogi requires too many pieces to learn. There are few people to play it even in Japan now.

I forgot to make some links previously. Mr. Larry Kaufman, who is chess IM and shogi amateur 5 dan, made a comparison of various chess-like games in 1999. I think it's still interesting.


http://www.shogi.net/shogi-l/Archive/1999/Nfeb07-06.txt

And for those who would like to know about shogi in general, the following videos on YouTube will be good.

HIDETCHI's shogi channel

Shogi 1 3

Shogi 2 3

Shogi 3 3

[Autolycus]

ありがとう！情報量の多いポストだった。(Thanks, that was an informative post.)

[Little Nemo]

I'll admit I haven't played more than a few games of shogi (and none recently) but in my opinion that the capture and drop rule is a bad idea. In chess, as the game progresses both players become weaker which keeps the game in relative balance. In shogi, a capture weakens one player and strengthens the other. This means that once the balance tips towards one player, that tipping reinforces itself and it makes it very difficult to turn a game back around once one player gains an advantage.

[panamajack]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I'll admit I haven't played more than a few games of shogi (and none recently) but in my opinion that the capture and drop rule is a bad idea. In chess, as the game progresses both players become weaker which keeps the game in relative balance. In shogi, a capture weakens one player and strengthens the other. This means that once the balance tips towards one player, that tipping reinforces itself and it makes it very difficult to turn a game back around once one player gains an advantage.

On the other hand, a slight material advantage in chess is often just as insurmountable. If I'm up a piece, I can pretty much trade material evenly and that piece advantage eventually wins the game - it just takes a while to get there. In Shogi, that's often not the case. If I trade pieces in an unimportant portion of the board, the materially weaker player suddenly has a far more valuable piece - it's almost like being able to redeploy your forces where they are needed. Since most pieces (relative to chess) aren't as powerful in Shogi, I think a larger material advantage is needed for it to make more of an impact on the game.

[Little Nemo]

On the other hand, a slight material advantage in chess is often just as insurmountable. If I'm up a piece, I can pretty much trade material evenly and that piece advantage eventually wins the game - it just takes a while to get there. In Shogi, that's often not the case. If I trade pieces in an unimportant portion of the board, the materially weaker player suddenly has a far more valuable piece - it's almost like being able to redeploy your forces where they are needed. Since most pieces (relative to chess) aren't as powerful in Shogi, I think a larger material advantage is needed for it to make more of an impact on the game.

Obviously if you give up a queen to capture a bishop, you made a bad exchange - in chess or shogi. But my point was that in chess, you lose a piece and you're weaker - but your opponent did not get any stronger by the capture. In shogi, if you lose a piece your opponent now owns it - you're one piece weaker and he's one piece stronger. Essentially each capture has twice the effect in shogi as it does in chess. And it would seem to be self-reinforcing. Both players start equal with twenty pieces. If one player captures a piece, he now has a 21-19 advantage. This advantage will make it easier for him to capture a second piece, which will give him a 22-18 advantage, which in turn will make it easier for him to capture another peice, and so on.

[takodori]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Essentially each capture has twice the effect in shogi as it does in chess. And it would seem to be self-reinforcing. Both players start equal with twenty pieces. If one player captures a piece, he now has a 21-19 advantage. This advantage will make it easier for him to capture a second piece, which will give him a 22-18 advantage, which in turn will make it easier for him to capture another peice, and so on.

That is true in shogi as far as material aspect is concerned. If one loses a Rook in shogi, the initial Rook balance of 1-1 becomes 0-2. I see what's your point.

Let me cite Habu Yoshiharu, who is the top shogi player and also one of the top chess players in Japan, wrote about the four ways of positional judgement of a specific position of shogi as followings in his book titled HABU'S WORDS;

1. Counting the material profit and loss of pieces,
2. Who's turn it is to move,
3. Having a strong castle or not,
4. Efficiency of pieces

Whether a position is good or bad in shogi is judged by comprehensively considering the abovementioned four factors. So, for example, it often happens that one is materially weaker but has stronger efficiency of pieces at the same time. You can often trade off better piece efficiency and/or taking a turn to play against material in reality.