Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Shotest Shogi Pictures

The following page has 32 very good relatively large screenshots of  Shotest shogi which seems to be available soon in XBox Live Arcade.

IGN:Shotest Shogi Pictures

3D Shotest seems available soon - XBox Live Arcade

Several blogs mentioned to the news about Shotest these few hours.

Doom and Assault Heroes become arcade hits
Assault Heroes, DOOM Join Xbox Live Arcade Hits
More XBLA Titles Announced
Site Update March 17, 2008
Hit Arcade titles discounted, more games on the way
Celebrate spring break with XBLA's discounted and new games

According to AI Factory's newsletter of October 2007, Shotest will offer a far more accessible and agreeable way of learning than is possible through traditional book study.

Wow!! I hope it will be released as early as possible.

 

All the classes of 66th Juni-sen finished

All the classes of 66th Juni-sen finished on March 14. Here are the summary of the players who will upgrade/downgrade in the next term from April 2008 to March 2009. The winner of the A-Juni-sen(league) is to be a challenger against Meijin. Habu Yoshiharu is the one this term.

B1 -> A

Suzuki Daisuke(8 dan)
Fukaura Koichi(8 dan)

B2 -> B1

Yamasaki Takayuki(7 dan)
Yashiki Nobuyuki(9 dan)

C1 -> B2

Akutsu Chikara(6 dan)
Toyokawa Takahiro(6 dan)

C2 -> C1

Murayama Yasuaki(5 dan)
Sasaki Makoto(5 dan)
Takano Hideyuki(5 dan)

A -> B1

Kubo Toshiaki(8 dan)
Namekata Hisashi(8 dan)

B1 -> B2

Shima Akira(8 dan)
Nakagawa Daisuke(7 dan)

B2 -> C1

(Nobody)

C1 -> C2

Chuza Makoto(7 dan)

C2 -> Free Class

Nakao Toshiyuki(5 dan)
Takeichi Saburo(7 dan)

"Fullmetal Alchemist" has a shogi scene

Recently I played a shogi game with a Spanish person who lives in France now at Kurnik - online multilanguage game server. He told me that he got to know shogi through manga such as Fullmetal Alchemist. I looked into that today and found the followings;

Heyman's Breda, one of the characters, is very good at strategy games. According to the page of State Military Characters of the Fullmetal Alchemist Manga in Wikipedia, He's an intellectual, number one graduated from military academy, despite his face and postures (who suggest him as rather brutish man) and has talents for strategy games, including chess, go, and shogi.

The Episode 27 of the anime has a shogi scene that Heymans Breda plays a shogi with one of the members of the State Military.

The volume 6 of the manga has a shogi scenes. There are some quiz including shogi in Fullmetal Alchemist vol.6 Manga Quiz

There seemed to be a shogi workshop in Singapore

Here is a blog entry that the author went to a shogi workshop. Since Singapore is found in the author's profile, I think the workshop was held there.

5.5km!!

Bookmarked professional games exceed 600

The number of shogi games bookmarked in del.icio.us/KifubyOpeningStrategy exceeds 600. Each bookmark is tagged by players'name, opening strategy, and replay recommendation if it touched me when I bookmarked. Here are some example.

replay-strongly-recommended
replay-recommended
shikenbisha

New professional players

On March 10, the final two rounds of Shoreikai 3-dan league took place. The following two will become professional players on April 1 2008.

Inaba Akira --- (19 years old, upper photo)
Tanaka Yuichi --- (22 years old, lower photo)

The 3-dan league score of both players are 13-5.

In principle, two new professional players come into the world every half of year. Top two players of the league are to become professional players.

It started in a subway in Tokyo last April

Here are blog entries about the heartful exchange between a Japanese guy and an American(probably) family including shogi scenes. The exchange started in a subway in Tokyo last April.

Yagi san's visit(Day 1)

Yagi san's visit(Day 3)

Shogi is included in Ultimate Boardgame Collection

Ultimate Boardgame Collection is a software on PSP developed by Valcon. Although it is not stated in the manufacturer's site, I happened to know it includes shogi today. Here are some links about the product.

Ultimate Board Game Collection Review
IGN: Ultimate Board Game Collection
Amazon Customer Reviews about Ultimate Board Game Collection

Atamakin Tsume Practice - #24

"Atamakin" means Gold drop on the square ahead of the opponent's King supported by other piece of yours on the board. This gold drop is frequently used when checkmating the King in the endgame. It is necessary to be able to make an Atamakin for you to win a game. You can learn by solving Atamakin Tsume Practice problems to be posted here. Today is #24. It's a 5 move tsume. I recommend you to replay the answer to remember the line if you cannot solve this problem within 5 minutes.

You can see the answer by clicking the arrow in the right direction under the board in order to replay the answer line. (Popup diagram to be saved for printing) Click the exclamation marks which appear below the diagram for further comments on the problem. If you click the marks again, the comment windows go away.