Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Bonanza was defeated by the top two amateurs

According to the article of IMPRESS PC Watch (in Japanese), the special matches between Bonanza, shogi computer program, and the two top amateurs were held as the event of releasing Bonanza 2.1 commercial edition on November 18. Bonanza has been a shogi freeware. Due to its winning the World Computer Shogi Championship 2006, the commercial edition was released by MAGNOLIA on November 17, Shogi Day. The release of the commercial version will not quit the freeware version reportedly.

There were two games - Bonanza vs Toru Shimizugami(Ama Ryuoh 2005) and Yukio Kato(Asahi Ama Meijin 2006) vs Bonanza. Both games ended with human victory.

You may replay the 1st game and 2nd game if your browser supports Java runtime.

There are many photos in the article. I am hyper-linking to some of them.

Mr. Kunihito Hoki, the developer of Bonanza

Mr. Toru Shimizugami, Ama Ryuoh 2005

Mr. Yukio Kato, Asahi Ama Meijin 2005

During play between Mr. Shimizugami(left side) and Bonanza(Mr. Hoki)

Commentary show using a big board by Katsumata 5dan(right side) and Fujita Lady 1dan

Reports of World Computer Shogi Championship 2005 & 2006

During netsurfing today I found good reports about Shogi Championship 2005 and 2006 with nice photos in the website of AI Factory located in United Kingdom. The company is AI production for games. It publishes quarterly newsletters with interesting articles. The reports were found there.

The World Computer Shogi Championship 2005

The World Computer Shogi Championship 2006

Both reports has been written by Reijer Grimbergen, who took part in the contests as the developer of the Spear shogi program.

There are another interesting article in AI Factory newsletter written by Jeff Rollason, the CEO and developer of Shotest. The article is titled "Fuzzy books - Approximate Opening Knowledge".

User comments playing shogi of Clubhouse Games for DS which might be worth reading

These two entries are very interesting to me.

chrisglass: Clubhouse Games  --- This entry includes the photo of shogi screen in Clubhouse Games for Nintendo DS. According to the photo, the pieces used in the software is a piece with one Kanji character on.

Re: Clubhouse Games -- Shogi - Other Nintendo WFC Games - Nintendo NSider Forums  --- I think Clubhouse Games is playing a part of increasing shogi population in the Western world.

More about 42 All-Time Classics

Here is the link to the movie titiled 42 Classics Review DS at Youtube. It is a nine-minute user generated video review about 42 All-time Classics recently released in Europe. Shogi is included in the software to play.

As you see in the video, shogi is locked to play in Free Play Mode when you open the package. According to the input from a friend in France, you need to play several other games in Stamp Mode to unlock shogi.

Here is the link to TOP 40 ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE (ALL PRICES), WEEK ENDING 7 October 2006 . 42 All-Time Classics jumped up from 36th to 17th place.

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You can play shogi on DS by Nintendo

According to the page of Clubhouse Games in Wikipedia, DS card named 42 All-Time Classics are now on sale from September 29 and DS card titled Clubhouse Games is going to be on sale on October 9. They are the localizations of the Japanese version called "Daredemo Asobi Taizen(だれでもアソビ大全)".

More than 40 board and card games are included in the card and you can enjoy playing shogi and hasami shogi. They say the sales volume of "Daredemo Asobi Taizen" in Japan exceeds 500,000 copies.

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How luckily Bonanza won the 16th World Computer Shogi Championship

On May 3 through 5, the 16th WCSC(World Computer Shogi Championship) was held in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. WCSC is a championship of shogi software programs. Both commercial program and non-commercial program can participate the tournament.

Bonanza, a shogi freeware created by Kunihito Hoki, won the tournament. You can find the result of the tournament in the post to shogi-l by Takizawa-san who is the chairman of Computer Shogi Association. Since it was first time for Bonanza to take part in the tournament, it had not seeded and had to compete others in the preliminary leagues in the first and second day to go to the final league in the third day.

Bonanza passed the preliminary tournament on the first day with the score of 7-0 and did the preliminary tournament on the second day with the score of 7-2. It was defeated by Bingo-shogi in the round 2 and by TACOS in the round 9. The five top program could go into the final league on the third day. Bonanza occupied 2nd place in the preliminary tournament, while Ohtsuki Shogi took 1st place.

In the round 1 of the third game, Bonanza was lost by YSS. And in round 3, its opponent was Gekisashi. Unbelievably, Gekisashi overlooked the mating line of Bonanza's King and Bonanza saved the valuable victory against Gekisashi. The diagram in the left was the position in question. Sente(lower side) is Gekisashi while Gote(upper side) is Bonanza. Gekisashi made a move of S*7a from the diagram, however, there should have been a mate to begin with Rx7b+ like the followings;

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d K-7b G*6c K-8b G*7b K-9a B*8b(mate)

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d K-5b G*5c K-4a G*4b(mate)

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d Kx5d  Gx4e K-6c(4c) B*5d K-5b P*5c Kx5c G*6c K-4b G*4c K-4a G6c-5b K-3a G-3b(mate)

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d Kx5d Gx4e K-5c B*4d K-4b G*5c K-3a(b) G*4b(mate)

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d Kx5d Gx4e K-5c B*4d K-6b G*6b K-7c G*7b(mate)

Rx7b+ Kx7b S*6c Kx6c S*5d Kx5d Gx4e K-6e B*4c K*6f G*5g Kx5g G*5h K-5f G-4f K-6f P*6g +Lx6g B-7f+(mate)

If Gekisashi found the mating line, Bonanza should have had two defeats and could not have won the final league.

Here was another luckiness to Bonanza in the round 6. The game between YSS and KCC ended with Sennichite and neither of them gained a point and their scores were 4 wins, 1 defeats and 1 draw after the round 6. Bonanza's score at the same time was 5 wins and 1 defeats. If YSS beat KCC, then YSS might have won the tournament if the scores of YSS and Bonanza were the same(6-1) after the final round since YSS beat Bonanza in the round 1.

Anyway, it was great accomplishment for a shogi freeware to become the winner of the tournament in computer shogi history.

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16th World Computer Shogi Championship

According to the announcement distributed to shogi-l, the 16th World Computer Shogi Championship will be held by Computer Shogi Association on May 3 through 5 in Chiba prefecture in Japan. 52 programs have applied.

YSS won World Championship of Computer Shogi

On November 16 and 17, World Shogi Championship were held at Computers and Games Research Unit of Japan Advanced Institute of Technology according to the sources in Japanese.. YSS, Gekisashi and TACOS participated in the tournament. The results are as followings. You can replay how the games have gone by clicking the links(Java capable browser is required).

Round 1, Gekisashi(b) vs TACOS(1-0)

Round 2, TACOS(b) vs YSS(0-1)

Round 3, YSS(b) vs Gekisashi(1-0)

Winner:YSS

YSS won this following to the tournament held in the 3rd International Shogi Forum by Japan Shogi Associaition on October 22 and 23.