Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Neues Deutschland covered 2nd one-day tournament in Ludwigshafen, Germany

Neues Deutschland, which is a German newspaper based in Berlin, covered the second ond-day tournamennt in Ludwigshafen.

• 05.12.2009: Der Weg kann das Ziel sein (Tageszeitung Neues Deutschland)
• English translation by Google Language tool.

Learn to play Shogi at the Balboa Club in San Diego

The following event of Learn to play Shogi will be held at 7:00pm on December 8 and 14 at the Balboa Club in San Diego, California. If you are further interested, please read the links below, you will find the contact information there;

• Learn to play Shogi at the Balboa Club - SAN DIEGO CHESS CLUB

Taught by Chess Expert Eric Kuniholm, now Shogi Master 1^st Dan.

      Shogi is a cousin of Western Chess, independently developed as the game spread outward from India over the last 1000 years or so. About 75% of the rules are similar so it’s really easy to learn if you know how to play Chess. Most of your skills will be transferable! —And transferable both ways if you get good at Shogi! Three of the top Shogi players in Japan have made master norms in their first ever attempts to play in Chess tournaments, and IM Larry Kaufman finally got his GM title after becoming the top rated Shogi amateur in the West.

      But be warned, Shogi has several orders of magnitude more possibilities than Chess, and computers have yet to beat Shogi professionals in match play. The main reason for the increased complexity is because in Shogi, prisoners can be reintroduced into play, like bughouse, and almost all pieces can promote—rooks, knights, bishops, and not just pawns. Almost every game ends in a sacrificial mating attack, and only 2% of games between professionals end in draws (for amateurs, the figure is even lower). And no problems finding opponents once you learn the game, it’s more popular than Go in the Japanese community, and the Shogi equivalent of the ICC offers free online membership to all players outside Japan.

I got an email with a photo from Eric Kuniholm, who is the organizer of the captioned event. Here is the photo he sent to me.

  (Eric Kuniholm presents to Chuck Ensey, and the San Diego Chess Club Library,two copies of Shogi books by Aono Teruichi 9 dan--graciously donated by the author. Balboa Club members can now check out two of the best books available in English on this Japanese cousin of Western Chess.)

BEGIN Japanology - shogi

I don't know how long they will be available to watch on YouTube, but the videos of BEGIN Japanology which NHK World TV broadcasted last week are available to watch there now. Here are the links;

1. YouTube - What is the Shogi 1 /3

2. YouTube - What is the Shogi 2 /3

3. YouTube - What is the Shogi 3 /3

Boardlives now - Final Round of Joryu Meijini-sen

It's not announced officially at the time of last weekend, but the following two games are available to watch now.

• Joryu-3 dan Chiba Ryoko(sente) vs Joryu sho-dan Honda Sayuri
• Queen Yauchi Rieko(sente) vs Joryu 6-dan Nakai Hiroe

Chiba will be the challenger if she beats Honda and the loser of the socond game will go down to B-League. The allotted thinking time per player is 2 hours and each player will have to make a move less than 60 seconds per move.

Progress of 81SU project of a new online playing website

The project proceeds steadily. The first prototype of the playing user interface has become available. It can be found at the following link;

• http://81square-shogi.homeip.net/EightyOneShogi.swf

Piece stand is not available and it does not allow pirece promotion yet.  But you can move a pieces and see how it works partly.

If you are interested further in this project, the thread of 81SU will be worth reading.

• The 81-Square Universe • View topic - New online playing website

Translation of Chapter 7 of Lectures on the Latest Strategies @Shogipedia is over

The translation project of Lectures on the Latest Strategies into English is ongoing at Shogipedia. The chapter one has been already available to read linked below. It is the book written by 6-dan Katsumata Kiyokazu and published in 2007.

• Lectures on the Latest Strategies, Chapter 7 - Shogipedia

1. Masuda and Ishida Style

So-called 'Ishida Style' can be considered two main valiations. One is 'Classic Ishida Style' which is without Bishop exchange, the other is rough game which is with that. In this lecture, I name the rough game 'Quick Ishida' and distinguish it from Classic Ishida Style. Of course 'Masuda Style Ishida' is included in Quick Ishida.

Now, speaking of Quick Ishida, I remember Meijin title match in 1971. This was a very big event for Ishida Style as well as professional shogi world. To speak of extremes, this was a watershed for Quick Ishida.

Kouzou Masuda, who stood in the limelight in Meijin title match for the first time in 3 years, challenged Yasuharu Ooyama Meijin with his favorite Masuda Style Ishda. Shogi fans cheered with keen interest Masuda Style Ishida which Masuda fully showed his talent on a board. He played Quick Masuda - which was made fun of like "kindergarten-style surprise attack" some time ago - making unigue improvements in Meijin title match. There is few such a wonderful episode.

Please click the link above if you would like to read the full article. And your brushing-up the article on Shogipecia will be appreciated.