Shogi

Shogi is a famous abstract strategy board game played by two people.

In Japan, it is one of the most popular board games. The name Shogi literally means "general's board game." It belongs to the same family of games as Western chess and Indian chaturanga.

While it shares roots with these games, Shogi has unique rules that change how players think. These rules create a game that is deep, decisive, and highly complex.

Two players face each other across a rectangular board.

The board is a grid of 9 ranks and 9 files. This creates a total of 81 squares. The squares are undifferentiated, meaning they have no colors or marks. Players often play on a raised board. This board is hollowed underneath to make a pleasing sound when pieces move. To decide who moves first, players use a method called furigoma.

A player tosses five pawns, and the number of promoted pawns facing up determines the turn order.

Each player uses 20 flat, wedge-shaped pieces called koma.

The pieces are pentagonal and vary slightly in size. The most important pieces are the largest. Each player starts with one king, one rook, one bishop, two gold generals, two silver generals, two knights, two lances, and nine pawns.

The pieces face forward by pointing their narrow end toward the opponent. This shows which player controls the piece. Most pieces have their names written in kanji, which are Chinese characters used in Japanese writing.

One of the most distinctive features of Shogi is the "drop rule."

When you capture an opponent's piece, you do not remove it from the game. Instead, you keep it as a "piece in hand," known as mochigoma. On any future turn, you may drop that piece back onto an empty square on the board. This rule was likely invented in the 15th century. Some historians believe it relates to 15th-century samurai mercenaries switching loyalties after being captured. This mechanic makes Shogi much more complex than Western chess. Its game tree complexity is estimated at approximately 10,226, which is higher than the 10,123 of FIDE chess.

Pieces in Shogi can also undergo promotion.

When a piece moves into the opponent's promotion zone, it can gain new powers. To show this, the player turns the piece over to reveal different characters on the back. For example, a promoted rook is called a ryūō, or "dragon king."

A promoted bishop is called a ryūma, or "dragon horse." A promoted pawn is called a tokin. These changes mean that pieces become more powerful as they move across the board. Players must plan carefully for these sudden shifts in strength.

Every piece has a specific way it moves, which is called its influence, or kiki.

The rook and bishop are ranging pieces. They can move any number of squares in a straight line. The knight is unique because it can jump over other pieces.

Unlike knights in international chess, Shogi knights can only move forward. They jump to a square that is one square straight forward and one square diagonally forward. Other pieces, like the gold and silver generals, move only one square at a time. The goal is to use these movements to checkmate the opponent's king.

Shogi has a very long history that stretches back many centuries.

Its earliest ancestor, chaturanga, originated in India during the 6th century. Shogi likely traveled to Japan via China or Korea after the Nara period. Historical documents from 1210 record an early version of the game. However, that version did not include the drop rule. The modern version of Shogi we recognize today was played as early as the 15th century. Because of the drop rule, draws are very rare. In professional games, draws occur only about 2% to 3% of the time. This makes the game very decisive compared to Western chess, where draws happen more often.