Shogi is a Japanese board game which shares a common ancestry with chess.

The moves of the pieces share more in common with chess than other variants of the game such as Xiang Qi (Chinese chess), but there is one critial difference: all the pieces are the same colour, and captured pieces may be reused as your own!

Shogi has a longer history in its current form than chess¹, the present rules already being used in 1604 when they were standardised through the establishment by order of the Shogun of the precursor of the modern Nihon Shogi Renmei (Japanese Shogi Federation).

Board and pieces

The game is played on a 9 by 9 grid of squares of the same colour.

There are 40 pieces which vary slightly in size, but all are wedge-shaped counters, the largest around 1/4 inch thick, 1 inch long, and 3/4 inch wide. They narrow towards the front, then turn in sharply to a point so they are in fact 5-sided.

Each piece is labelled with its name (two characters in Japanese², often abbreviated to one), and most pieces are additionally labelled on the back with another piece to which they can "promote"³ (see below).

Name	Abbr.	Pronunciation	English	Move	Promotes to
		Oushou	King4	One square in any direction
		Hisha	Rook5	Any distance orthogonally		Dragon
		Kakugyou	Bishop6	Any distance diagonally		Horse
		Kinshou	Gold7	One square orthogonally or diagonally forwards8
		Ginshou	Sliver9	One square diagonally or straight forwards		Gold10
		Keima	Knight11	One square straight forward (even if blocked) then one square diagonally forward12		Gold
		Kyousha	Lance13	Any distance straight forwards only		Gold
		Fuhyou	Pawn14	One square straight forwards only15		Gold16
Promoted pieces:
		Ryuuou	Dragon17	Any distance orthogonally or one square diagonally
		Ryuuma	Horse18	Any distance diagonally or one square orthogonally

At the start of the game, the layout of the board has rotational symmetry, with the Bishops opposing. Openings are characterised primarily by whether the Rook remains "static" on its original file, or moves to the center or right of the camp, "ranging". One of several defensive "castle" formations is usually built to house the King on the oppsite side of the camp, away from the rook. Game diagrams use the abbreviated single-character piece-names.

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Play

The object of the game is to capture your opponents king. More to come in this section especially.

Where to find out more

The best English-language beginners book is John Fairbairn's "Shogi for Beginners", republished in 1998 by Kiseido, ISBN 4-906574-97-1. In the early 1980s, John Fairbairn also collaborated with the top Japanese Shogi theoretician Aono Teruichi to publish two books on Shogi with parallel English translation: a collection of problems introducing 8 joseki "Guide to Shogi Openings", Sankaido, 1983, ISBN 4-381-00598-8, and a text accompanying a series of TV lectures on NHK, "Better Moves for Better Shogi", Sankaido, 1983, ISBN 4-381005-97-X.

Be very wary of other books in English; for example the Know-the-Game series book on Shogi (thankfully now out of print) covers only one joseki, and explicitly instructs you to make a well-known beginners error in it, guaranteeing a loss of initiative if not materiel!

¹Chess made drastic alterations extending the moves of its pieces only a couple of hundred years ago in an attempt to speed the game up.²There are sets available marked with a single roman letter indicating the English name, and/or a glyph showing the moves the piece can make, but these are not recommended even for beginners, since it is very difficult to unlearn them.³Unlike chess, not just pawns but almost all pieces can be promoted when they reach the far end of the board, but the piece they turn into is predetermined, rather than chosen by the player.⁴The "black" king (black moves first) is conventionally marked with an extra stroke turning the character for king

into the character for ball:

The character for ball is also used in diagrams and game scores.⁵Literally Flying Chariot⁶Literally Angle mover⁷Literally Gold General⁸Or one square in any direction except diagonally backwards⁹Literally Silver General¹⁰The promoted versions of Silver, Knight, Lance and Pawn are written on the pieces with increasingly cursive versions of the character for Gold, so they can be distinguished; they have different value again once taken.
In game scores, they are shown combined with either the character for promoted, or the word promoted in katakana.
¹¹Literally Katsura (type of tree) Horse¹²i.e. the two most forward moves of a chess knight¹³Literally Fragrant Chariot¹⁴Literally Foot Soldier¹⁵Unlike in chess, the pawn has no special opening or diagonal taking moves¹⁶The character for a promoted pawn is so cursive it looks like a Hiragana "to"
so promoted pawns are called tokin

and shown on game diagrams using the Hiragana to.¹⁷Literally Dragon King¹⁸Literally Dragon Horse¹⁹In game scores, the board is numbered across in Arabic numerals, and down in Japanese numerals.