81道場 WebシステムWhy do you play shogi though you have choice to do chess?
kpby2751 (1783) ☗3☗4☗132019-11-27 22:16What make you want to play shogi? Could you tell me why you chose shogi? I welcome whatever you write on forum. I could have told you,couldn't I?
World Shogi Forum > Shogi in General > Why do you play shogi though you have choice to do chess?
kpby2751 (1783) ☗3☗4☗132019-11-27 22:16
I think that I started to play shogi instead of chess, just because the interest in the japanese culture. I learned to play chess, but it was the capture and return of the shogi pieces that makes me enjoy shogi.
I have tried Western chess, Chinese chess (Xiangqi), Korean chess (Janggi), Chu Shogi and modern Shogi, and concluded that (modern) Shogi is the most successful chess variant because the first move advantage is insignificant and draws are very rare. Chu Shogi is very good too but it takes so much time.
I started learning chess when I was 4 years old. I was playing in tournaments in high school and was reasonably strong, but competitive chess just wasn't fun - it became more like work. And even the smallest mistake - even one as small as a tempo loss - against someone the same strength as I was meant I was going to lose the game. I learned shogi on one of my many trips to Japan. I dropped in to a shogi club in Kyoto and was the only non-Japanese who had ever entered. The members there gave me a printout in Japanese, which at the time, I couldn't read or speak. I lost my first four games, but won my fifth, shocking everyone in the room. I was told that I played "like a chess player". I was very aggressive and didn't know anything about shogi castles, but that sometimes meant I had an advantage; no one could use joseki against me. They gifted me my first shogi set, which I still have 12 years later, with other sets I've picked up over time. After learning shogi, I never want to play chess; shogi is more interesting, complex, and flexible; games are interesting until the end with more opportunities to make a comeback. There's also more of an appreciation for shogi; high level chess is less about culture and focuses on defeating your opponent, but in shogi, I feel that there's more respect even in losing your games. Shogi feels less cutthroat. Now I devote a lot of time to studying shogi, and have recently been playing 4+ hours per day to improve.
Thank you. I read your writing. I also feel relaxing because of touching pieces made of wood.That's why I love playing shogi in real pieces and board.
I personally play chess, Chinese chess, go (碁), shogi and sometimes gomoku. I am not a professional player, so I don't have to put all my effort in just one game to get the best results. So I keep playing all of those depending on my mood. Each of those games has it's own aesthetics. I personally love my boxwood and rosewood chess pieces, I like my go stones from Korea, I find my wooden Chinese chess pieces very warm and beautiful too. My shogi pieces are made of boxwood too, thoough crafted in China. Look very like Japanese ones, but don't have the craftsman signature and character style name on the kings bottoms. I would love to get the real wooden pieces from Japan, but those are so expensive and I am not very familiar with shopping abroad. I also don't have the comodai (for the pieces in hand), and planning to make one on my own. But even the set I have is really beautiful and so tactile. Also there's certain aesthetics in the moves themselves, in interesting combinations, in joseki. When a good combination is applied, there is a certain beauty to it. And the thrill of the fight in shogi, when so many pieces are exchanged and dropped back one by one, or the life and death struggle between several groups in the game of 碁, or the mate race in chess... Damn, why should I choose one of those, if I can have all? :)
Thank you. I read your writing.I wish Shogi were more familiar to many people around the world.
Since really long ago, ( back on 1990's) when I was young. I started reading Japanese comics... whee I find very interesting cultural things, and in one of they, "RANMA NIBUN NO ICHI (AKA; RANMA 1/2)" I find Shogi and igo, first I learn igo. and for Shogi ... since several years later, because at the times I read/watched Ranma 1/2 Shogi was bad translated... I can not find the rules, nor any clue ... then in middle of 2006, after "Naruto" start becoming quite popular, a firen find the rules and teach me just the VERY BASICS rules... and I get hooked with it. Then because the lag of players in Spain, and because at this times not many places to play on line ( still no Smart phones nor Apps ) ... I decided to promote the game ...
You are welcome. You will see that a lot of things translate from shogi to chess well. You are already good at shogi so I think you can become good at chess very quickly if you don't give up.
Thank you,nexxogen for replying again and giving me a good advice. I try playing chess in a few days.
I would also say that chess strategy is a lot different than shogi strategy. Because chess pawns capture diagonally and can therefore protect one another, there's a whole strategical element in chess called "pawn chains" that doesn't exist in shogi. Also in chess, there are more instances of long term strategical principles like putting your Knight on a protected square in your opponents half of the board because often it cannot be easily removed from there since you can't just drop a Pawn to attack it like in shogi. The long term strategy part is in my opinion superior in chess compared to shogi. But shogi has other elements which are, again in my opinion, superior compared to chess. That's why it is really worth it to play both games. You can also improve in shogi by playing chess and vice versa, because you force your brain to think in a different way and see patterns that are different than what you are used to.