Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Articles related to shogi in German written by Dr. Gralla

I'm notified that Dr. Gralla has succeeded in  publishin the following articles in an Austrian game magazine called "SpielxPress". The articles are written in German.

Shogi in Japan (1) - http://www.spielxpress.com/download/A2008/A18_12-13.pdf (PDF File)

Shogi in Japan (2) - http://www.spielxpress.com/download/A2009/A19_16-17.pdf (PDF File)

Makruk in Thailand (2) - http://www.spielxpress.com/download/A2008/A17_10-11.pdf (PDF File, including an interview with Japanese Girl Band "Shonen Knife" on Shogi) 

Link to the Interview with Umeda Mochio who is the author of "Yoshiharu Habu and Modern Shogi"

Here is the link to the interiew with Umeda Mochio who is the author of "Yoshiharu Habu and Modern Shogi("Silicon Valley kara Shogi wo Miru" in Japanese).

JAPAN ECHO - EXAMINING JAPAN’S OPPOSITION Vol. 36, No. 4 - Watching Shôgi from Silicon Valley

 

Presenting shogi at an anime event

Presenting shogi at an anime even seems to be a good way to find people who become interested in shogi. Here are two recent examples.

Louisiana #Shogi: Mechacon Shogi Panel

Hey everyone. Mechacon ended tonight, and my panel was last night. It went much better than I was expecting, and everyone who came very much enjoyed the game....

Bienvenue sur Shogi.Fr!!!　#shogi at Japan Expo 2009 in Paris (In French, But good phtos on the linked page)

 

 

GoldToken.com has released Shogi

GoldToken.com, which is a turn-based boardgame site, has added shogi to their items of boardgames such as classsic ones and variants since July 20.

Shogi posted by Mecir on 20 Jul at 4:28AM
I am pleased to announce the availability of a new game - Shogi!. It is a Japanese game somewhat similar to our Chess.

In addition to the main game, two variants are also available - Mini Shogi, which is a version of Shogi played on a smaller board with less pieces, and Hasami Shogi, which is a game played on the Shogi board with some of the Shogi pieces, but with completely different (and much simpler) set of rules.

The membership information of the site is here. It's devided into five levels, from free membership called Guest to Platinum

An Email from ramalam who lives in Australia

I've got an email from ramalm who lives in Australia and recently presented shogi during the 10th Anual Japan Festival.

Recently the 10th annual Japan Festival was held in Box Hill , Melbourne Australia.

The committee kindly asked me to once again host the Shogi section.

I'm pleased to say that once again it was a great success!
This year I was allocated two tables , which allowed me to set up 5 sets, at times 
I played two , or three simultaneous games against youngsters , most of these were handicapped games.
The age difference varied from old men right down to six year old boys and girls, varying in strength from approximately  2 kyu , to novice.
Over all , I played more than 20 games , and instructed beginners in many more.
I would estimate that throughout the seven hours of the festival , 50 people played , or tried out the game. Of course thre were plenty of good Japanese players, however, this year , I'm happy to say  , that people from  many different cultures played, even some aussies! I'm hoping to follow up the interest shown on the day by forming Melbourne's first Shogi club Attached is a picture of my first  opponent of the day , a young Japanese boy ,
he was a very good player!

Many thanks to the Japan Festival Organising Committee.

Also to Naoki Mitamura for his help with instructing beginners and bringing along an extra Shogi set.

Oh, it seems that the Melbourne's first Shogi Club will be formed. Splendid.

Yoshihisa Yamada updated the status of tranlation project of "Habu Yoshiharu and Modern Shogi"

Yoshihisa Yamada updated the status of translation project of "Yoshiharu Habu and Modern Shogi" into other languages than English.

PROGRESS REPORT AND ACCESS ANALYSIS - YOSHIHISA YAMADA’s Blog

Premiere of Shogi Documentary Film in Sarzburg, Austria

Premiere of Shogi Documentary Film will be held on June 21 in Sarzburug, Austria. For more information, please visit the page below;

www.nifu.tv/shogi

Invitation to Shogi Group @ chess.com

Shogi Group started several days ago at chess.com which is one of the biggest chess SNS site. If you are a both chess and shogi fan, how about taking an user account of chess.com and taking part in the group. Chess.com offers lots of functions including team match so that the Shogi Group can have team chess match with other teams/groups on chess.com. I think it's one of the newest ways of exchange betwen shogi and chess players.

Shogi - Chess.com

Yonenaga has been elected as the President of JSA again

The annual general meeting of Japan Shogi Association(JSA) was held on May 26. This year is the one when the directors are to be elected. The election is to be done every two year according to their bylaw.

As a result, the following eight directors have been elected and Yonenaga has been elected as the president among the newly-elected directors following to the previous two terms.

Yonenaga Kunio
Nishimura Kazuyoshi
Awaji Hitoshige
Sakurai Noboru
Aono Teruichi
Nishikawa Keiji
Nakagawa Daisuke
Ueno Hirokazu

An interesting article I found yesterday

Yesterday I found a blog entry written by the author who thought paying $30 for a shogi board and $10 for shipping would be expensive. So he made his own set by himself. If you feel sympathy with him, the following article will be must-see. He explained what he did with many photos there.

The Matt and Sometimes Amy Blog: Shogi is Japanese Chess

For a VERY long time, I have desired a shogi board.  Shogi, as the title says, is Japanese chess.  It’s played on a 9x9 board with 20 pieces per side with similar(ish) rules.  But, any time I’ve found a shogi board, it’s cost has been at least 30 dollars and usually was going to cost me another 10 dollars in shipping as well.

So, I decided, quite suddenly, that I should just build my own.

Please visit the link above to read the whole story.