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It seems that I usually get interested in things that not many people on this forum are interested in, like American Football. I'm guessing this is gonna be one of those things: Does anyone here play Shogi, aka Japanese Chess? It's probably the funnest chess variant (or even board game) there is.
Since this is Asian History forum, any comment about the history of Shogi is welcome.
Let me start: it's impossible to discuss the history of Shogi without discussing the history of chess in general. There are many claims about the origin of chess, though the most popular claim is that it was invented in India (Greece and China are also candidates.) In any case, chess spread far and wide across the Europe-Asia-Africa land mass, and resulted in a plethora of variants. Here we are concerned with the development of the Japanese variant, Shogi. As a matter of fact, one shouldn't speak of Shogi as one variant, for there are many variants within Shogi itself. However, the game of Shogi has been standardized a few centuries ago, and it is this standard form of Shogi that is the most popular.
The name Shogi is written 將棋 (general chess) in Han Chinese script / Kanji. Why don't they call it 象棋 (elephant chess) like the Chinese do? It is probably because the Japanese word for "elephant" doesn't sound like the Chinese word for "elephant" 象 (can any Japanese speaker confirm this?), and so instead they transliterated rather than translated the word 象, and to use a word that sounds similar to the sound of 象, they used 將, which in meaning is very apt for Shogi, because the game features a number of different pieces that are called generals -- the King General, the Jade General, the Gold General, and the Silver General. This doesn't mean Japanese didn't have a word for "elephant": some Shogi variants do have a piece called "drunken elephant."
Wherever chess originated, it must have reached Japan through two pathways: 1) the China-Korea or China pathway (it's possible that chess went straight from China to Japan, bypassing Korea) and 2) the Southeast Asian pathway. 1) seems rather obvious and expected, yet one might be surprised to find astounding similarities between Shogi and Thai chess (Makruk). Here is some comparison:
Features common to Japanese chess, Chinese chess, and Thai chess:
1) The basic arrangement of the first line: chariots are the farthest ends, knights next, then minister / elephants, then the king with another minister(s).
2) Some kind of promotions (such as pawns in Chinese chess obtaining the ability to walk sideways after crossing the river.)
3) Move into an opponent's square to take that piece.
4) Basic game play: two players playing alternatively, checkmate to win, etc.
5) Some basic movements: Knights move 2 over and 1 across; Chariots (rooks) move orthogonally. However, in Shogi, knights and fragrant chariots (some call them "lances") can only move forward.
Japanese chess (Shogi) and Chinese chess (Xiangqi) similiarities:
1) Pieces are written in Han Chinese script / Kanji.
2) Pawns move and capture the same way, one step forward.
3) Nine pieces are placed on the baseline, with king in the middle, two guards / gold generals flanking the king, then two ministers / silver generals, then the knights, then the chariots. (It is possible, however, that this isn't derived immediately from Chinese/Korean chess, but via a form of Cambodian chess that incorporated Xiangqi elements into Thai / Cambodian chess.)
4) A work called Xuanguai Lu, writtin in Tang by Prime Minister Niu Sengru, speaks of a dream of Cen Shun that describes a battle, and the movement of troops seems to mirror Xiangqi pieces movement, yet the waggons only move forward. This might be the source of the forward-moving only knights and fragrant chariots.
Japanese chess and Thai chess (Makruk) similarities:
1) Pieces are placed in the squares.
2) Flipping over pieces for promotion (?) -- Not sure if this is true for Thai chess.
3) The very unique movement of elephant/silver generals -- one space in every direction except left, right, and back. Thai chess either inherited or derived this move from a variant of movement of the elephant in Indian chess.
4) King moves the same -- one space in every direction.
5) The pieces are set up so that the line of pawns are on the third row. The board for Heian Shogi (the earliest variant of Shogi, see below), which some suggest might have a 8 x 9 board (8 vertically, 9 horizontally), might have evolved from this. (Some, however, suggests that the Heian Shogi board is 9 x 9. Even so, Heian Shog is remarkably similar to Thai chess.)
6) Pieces are promoted when they reach the third row of the opponent's side.
Features unique to Japanese chess:
1) The movement of gold generals (however, I have a weak speculation that it comes from Korean chess. The movement of gold generals is one space in every direction except the two diagonal backward spaces. This movement doesn't exist in Korean chess, but it does corresponds to the available moving spaces for the king in Korean chess at its starting position.
2) The pieces on both sides are in the same color and shape -- the shape of a boat or an arrowhead. The pieces of either player is distinguished by which way they are facing (e.g., the points of my pieces point toward my opponents' side.) The pieces not differentiated by color might be a feature from Chinese and/or Korean chess -- I speculate that pieces in Chinese chess and may be also Korean chess were originally the same color on both sides, and distinguished by the names they are called (this explains why the same pieces are called different names on both sides.) The Japanese probably inherited the "same color problem" and solved it differently: rather than using different names for the same pieces, they designed the shape of the pieces to have orientations.
3) A nine by nine playing board.
4) 40 pieces total, 20 for each side.
5) Squares on the board are somewhat retangular in shape.
6) Pieces captured from the opponent may be returned back to the board by the captor and be used as his own pieces. This seems to be a later development, as the earlier variants of Shogi did not have this feature. This feature is made possible by the fact that the same pieces are identical on both sides.
7) Most pieces are written on both sides -- one side for unpromoted status, the other side for promoted status. When promoted, a piece is flipped over, indicating its promoted status.
Brief description of the game: Each side has 8 types of pieces --
1) One King or Jade General (This is to differentiate the two sides. One side would hold the King General, the other side would hold the Jade General. The Jade General side is typically the less skilled player or the starting player, just like the red pieces in Chinese chess or white pieces in European chess.) Moves one space in every direction.
2) Two Gold Generals -- defensive guards as well as good melee troops for endgame. Move like the King and Jade Generals, except cannot move backwards diagonally.
3) Two Silver Generals -- well-rounded offensive and defensive units. Move like the King and Jade Generals, except cannot move left, right, and back.
4) Two Honorary Knights -- move like knights of other chess variants, but can only move forward (that is, two spaces forward and one space over to either left or right.)
5) Two Fragrant Chariots (aka Lance) -- move like rooks of other chess variants, but can only move forward.
6) One Flying Chariot -- move exactly like rooks of other chess variants.
7) One Angle Walker -- move exactly like bishops in European chess.
8) Nine Infantries -- move one space forward, like pawns in Chinese chess prior to crossing the river.
Promotion: King, Jade, and Gold generals cannot promote. Silver, Knights, Lances, and Infantries promote to become Gold. Flying Chariot promotes to become Dragon King, keeping its original movements and obtaining King / Jade Generals' movement. Angle Walker promotes to become Dragon Horse, keeping its original movement and obtaining King / Jade Generals' movement.
How to promote: a piece can be promoted upon entering, leaving, or walking within the last three rows of opponent's side. Promotion is always optional, except when an Infantry or Lance reaches the last row, or when a Knight reaches the last or the second last row, whereupon the piece in question must promote.
How to put captured pieces back to use: Putting a captured piece back to use is called "drop" in English Shogi terminology. A captured piece may be dropped on any empty square. Dropping counts as a turn. A captured promoted piece is automatically demoted, and is in its unpromoted status when dropped back to play. Three basic restrictions for dropping:
1) Lances and Infantries may not be dropped in the opponent's last row; Knights may not be dropped in the opponent's last two rows.
2) On each column, there can be only one unpromoted Infantry one each side.
3) One cannot drop an infantry to mate one's opponent (however, it is legal to move an infantry to mate, to drop an infantry to check without mate, and to drop any piece other than infantry to mate.)
These are the basic rules for standard Shogi. There are other rules, but I won't go into them right now.
A brief history of Shogi from its original form to its standard form: The first Shogi variant is probably the Heian Shogi, played in the Heian Era (8th to 12th century.) My guess is that Chess was introduced to Japan along with Go, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism during the Tang dynasty. However, Heian Shogi already has some of the features of Thai chess, hence chess must have also reached Japan from Southeast Asia around or before that time. This original form was probably not very exciting (in fact, we've lost the rules of this game, but people have reconstructed it.) It has all the pieces in standard Shogi except Flying Chariot and Angle Walker. Without these dynamic, far-ranging pieces, the game is probably very slow to play. There is no dropping of captured pieces, thus making the game even less exciting.
Many Shogi variants were created in the next several centuries, including:
1) Heian Dai Shogi: 13 x 13 board, 34 pieces on each side.
2) Dai (Great) Shogi: 15 x 15 board, 65 pieces on each side
3) Chu (Middle) Shogi: 12 x 12 board, 21 types of pieces, 46 pieces total for each side.
4) Tenjiku ("Indian") Shogi: 16 x 16 board, 78 pieces on each side.
5) Dai-Dai Shogi: 17 x 17 board, 96 pieces on each side, 64 types of pieces.
6) Maka Dai-Dai Shogi: 19 x 19 board, 96 pieces on each side.
7) Tai (Grand) Shogi: 25 x 25 board, 177 pieces on each side.
With these many variants, a great variety of interesting pieces were created. I speculate that the Flying Chariot and Angle Walker were invented as these variants were created.
The immediate precursor to Standard Shogi seems to be Sho (Small) Shogi, which has, like the Standard Shogi later invented, a 9 x 9 board, all the same pieces as Standard Shogi, with an additional piece of Elephant, and no dro rule.
Standard Shogi popular today is formed around the 16th century when Emperor Go-Nara introduced the drop rule to Sho Shogi, and the elephant was taken out of the game, and thus Standard Shogi was created. In the 17th century, Shogun Tokugawa comissioned Honinbo (best player of Go and Shogi at the time) to found a professional academy for both games. Honinbo founded it with Ohashi, whose son published Shogi Zushiki, which is the standardized rule for Standard Shogi.
Although Shogi is mostly popular within Japan, it is somewhat well-known in the West. One can easily find online resources in English about Shogi, and there are some instruction books written in English. There are two places one can play online: One can try http://www.shogidojo...ng/engindex.htm (free mail seems to be required), or try Yahoo Japan and register there and play there I think there is an English Shogi game forum, but I'm not sure what its address is. A shogi set is quite cheap: you can buy it for around 10 bucks USD in America, and I think you can buy it much cheaper in Asia (like probably around 10 HKD -- 1/8 the price in America -- in Hong Kong!) I definitely recommend this game for people who like logic games yet are a little bored of the more well-known ones.
This post has been edited by MengTzu: 24 July 2008 - 07:11 PM
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) naturally I have no interest in that. (turns nose up at all forms of testosterone alpha-male induced aggressive and violent interactions masquerading as something called sports... 
Now women ice-skating, now that's sports I tell ya... I could watch it all day...)
)