Shogi for chess players

You already know most of this game. The rook is a rook, the bishop is a bishop, check is check. This course skips all of that and spends its time on the half-dozen places where shogi stops being chess - above all on the rule that lets a captured piece come back fighting for whoever took it.

Start the course Full rules on one page

Chess and shogi, side by side

9x9, all 81 squares identical The board
In chess: 8x8, light and dark squares
Direction - every tile points at its owner's opponent Whose piece is whose
In chess: Colour - white and black
Go to the captor's hand and can be played back as their own Captured pieces
In chess: Leave the game for good
Almost every piece, last three ranks, one fixed upgrade each Promotion
In chess: Pawn only, last rank, you choose the piece
One square forward, captures forward, no en passant The pawn
In chess: Double first move, captures diagonally, en passant
Two jumps, both forward - it can never come back The knight
In chess: Eight L-shaped jumps, in every direction
A castle built by hand, three or four moves of generals King safety
In chess: Castling: one move, two pieces
Material never leaves - attacks feed on what they capture The endgame
In chess: Material comes off, the position simplifies
Rare: repetition (sennichite) and impasse, and stalemate is a loss Draws
In chess: Common: stalemate, repetition, insufficient material

The course: seven lessons

1. The board, and the rules that are not there
9x9, no colours, no castling, no en passant, no queen - and coordinates that count the other way.
2. The five pieces you already know
Rook and bishop unchanged, the king minus castling, and a knight and pawn far weaker than yours.
3. Gold, silver and lance: the three with no chess name
The two generals that hold every castle together, and the piece that only ever goes forward.
4. Promotion: for almost every piece, three ranks deep
Not just pawns, not just the last rank, and never a choice of what you get.
5. The drop: the rule that makes it a different game
Captured pieces change sides. Everything you know about the endgame stops applying here.
6. The four things you may not drop
Dead pieces, two pawns on a file, and the one mate the rules refuse to let you play.
7. The chess habits to unlearn
Trading is not simplifying, castling is a building project, and the attack is faster than you think.

The pieces, in both vocabularies

King 玉 gyoku / 王 ou
The same king, minus castling
Rook 飛 hisha
The rook, unchanged
Bishop 角 kakugyo
The bishop, unchanged
Gold 金 kinsho
No equivalent - a one-square king without its back diagonals
Silver 銀 ginsho
No equivalent - forward and the four diagonals
Knight 桂 keima
A knight that only jumps forward
Lance 香 kyosha
No equivalent - a rook that only goes forward
Pawn 歩 fuhyo
A pawn that captures straight ahead

What chess players ask first

Where is the queen?

There is none, and nothing starts anywhere near that strong. The rook and bishop are the only ranging pieces, and they only approach queen-like power after promotion, as the Dragon King and the Dragon Horse. That is why shogi openings are slow: neither side has a piece that can punish a mistake from across the board on move six.

If nothing ever leaves the board, how does a game end?

By checkmate, almost always - and sooner than in chess, not later. Because both sides keep re-arming from what they capture, attacks accelerate instead of burning out, and a king that is one move from safety is usually one move from mate too. Draws are so rare that most players go years without one.

Is my chess ability worth anything here?

Most of it. Calculation, king safety, tempo, the habit of asking what your opponent wants - all of it transfers. What does not transfer is material evaluation: trading down into a "won endgame" does not exist, because the pieces you traded off are now in your opponent's hand.

What to learn next

Knowing the rules is not yet knowing how to play. The usual next step is one castle and one opening: build the Mino castle, learn a Swinging Rook opening behind it, and play a dozen games without changing anything. Then read the piece pages to see what each one is actually for in the middle game.

openings castles piece by piece guide play shogi online

The structure of this course follows "Shogi: Aprendendo o Básico" by Diego Parracho Viana Silveira (Semicollon Estúdios), written for this site and free for anyone to use.