Hello from California!
Hello everyone,
I'm Will, a 32 year old software engineer. I learned shogi on one of my numerous trips to Japan after I stopped by a club in Kyoto with no prior knowledge of the game. I've now been playing shogi for 12 years. My other hobbies include world travel and cooking.
I came from a chess background and have only recently devoted time to seriously studying. I run the South Bay Shogi Club in California; we're not an official club, but before the pandemic, we would meet every week to play, and regularly collaborated with the San Francisco club. Due to the circumstances, we're online-only (through Discord and 81dojo) for the foreseeable future. We were making strong pushes to grow our club right when our shelter-in-place orders were announced.
My favorite part about games like shogi and chess is that it connects people across language barriers! Though I speak a little bit of Japanese, it's not enough for extensive conversations; but I can share a great time with someone over a few games of shogi, including friends' kids!
>>3 Bressette
Hi neighbor!
I absolutely understand - I play chess around an 1800/1900 (still unrated, but did play local tournaments against people who were), and I got really tired of how perfectly you need to play. Losing even one tempo against my opponent typically meant I would lose the match... and it would be obvious for 70% of the game who was going to win.
Shogi is far more exciting all the way through to the end! I do miss being able to read 10 move-pairs ahead - there's too much going on in shogi to do that - but it's a good tradeoff!
Greetings from Fresno! I know that isn't close, but by 81Dojo standards, we're practically neighbors. I also come from a chess background and love the prevalence of the comeback in Shogi. I feel in chess it's very often about getting up a pawn or 2, maybe the exchange, and trading down. No such luck in Shogi!
>>1 Atreides
We welcome everyone in our Discord channel! Here's the link if you want to connect: https://discord.gg/r38FGfS
Welcome! I live less than a hour outside Sacramento. I'm interested in maybe linking up with you guys through Discord? This game is overwhelmingly complex and I suffer from tactical tunnel-vision XD