How to Play Japanese Chess

One of Japan's greatest abilities is to take something and make it better. They do this with everything: TVs, walkmans, computer games. In fact, they have been doing this for a while. Shogi is Japanese chess. Chess originally came from India and then went to all parts of the world. Every major country had its own variant. Japanese chess became very different though from most other variants. For one, a player may re-enter peices they capture. Also, unlike in western chess where only one unit may promote, all but 2 units may be promoted. Here I will explain the rules of shogi.

Overview
The object of shogi is just like standard chess. You have to checkmate the opponent's king. The same rules for check apply except that When you are in check, you have an extra way to escape: re-entering a piece in a position to block the attacking unit. The rules of checkmate are the same, though. The game starts with the "black" player. The black player's units aren't actually black, but his king has the kanji for "jewel" instead of "king" and starts in the position 6i. The "white" player goes second and starts the game in position 6a.

The board
Shogi is played on a 9x9 board. Usually, the squares are not checkered as in western chess.

---

Continue
Return