Traditional Shogi pieces have the piece names written on them in Kanji (Japanese writing using Chinese characters), and because pieces may change sides, the side a piece belongs to is determined by orientation, not by color. (those squares lying on the last three ranks). As shown on the left, Shogi is traditionally played on an uncheckered board, and four black dots delineate the Each player begins with one King, one Rook, one Bishop, two Gold Generals, two Silver Generals, two Knights, two Lances and nine Pawns. These will all be covered in the subsections below: The Initial Setup of Shogi It differs from Chess in its board, in the initial setup of the pieces, in the pieces used, and in some rules, particularly those concerning piece promotion, the capturing of pieces, and the dropping of captured pieces. It's a two-player game in which each side takes turns moving one piece at a time with the object of checkmating the opponent's King. In some respects, Shogi is very similar to western Chess. Shogi, which rhymes with yogi, means general's game. Shô means general and Gi means board game. It is certain that Shogi in its present form was played in Japan as early as the 16th century. Notably, Japan was home to many variants, and one that was originally called 'Small Shogi' eventually won out over the larger variants and became known simply as 'Shogi'. Shogi shows signs of influence from the regional variants in both southeast Asia and east Asia, and its origin may be syncretic.

The northward migration spread to China, where it became Xiangqi, and turned east to Korea, where it became Janggi. The eastward migration likely crossed the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia, leading to Makruk in Siam (Thailand) and Sittuyin in Burma (Myanmar). Shatranj in Arabia and Orthodox Chess in Europe. From there Chaturanga migrated westward, eastward and northward, mutating along the way. The similarites between Chess and Shogi suggest a common origin, and it is commonly held that their common origin was a game called Chaturanga, whichĪrose in India in approximately the 7th century AD. This difference from Chess helps keep the game interesting and exciting until the end. Compare this to Chess, where the difference of a single Pawn can decide the outcome of the game between equally skilled players. It allows players who are behind to more easily get ahead, and it can keep the outcome of the game more uncertain until the very end. Although it shares with Chess the same object, the same general rules, and some of the same pieces, this one difference makes the experience of playing Shogi quite different from the experience of playing Chess. Very similar to it in some respects, it differs from Chess mainly by allowing players to keep captured pieces and replay them as their own.

Rules of Tetrahedral Shogi and Tetrahedral HexgiĬheck out Ultima, our featured variant for January, 2024.

Rules of Shogi-set Nearlydouble Variants.

Rules of Rutherford’s 1-dimensional Shogi.

Rules of 125 Percent Shogi and 125 Percent Xiang Qi.

Shogi, Mortal Shogi, and Kamikaze Mortal Shogi with Zillions-of-Games.

Shogi with Impassable Kings on Game Courier.Then switching to Lady (dame/dama) for the Queen makes sense just to create a unique letter.Shogi (将棋): Japanese Chess – The Chess Variant Pages I think the same thing applies to Romance languages where the words for King and Queen derive from the Latin words Rex and Regina (Roi and Reine in French, Rey and Reina in Spanish, etc.), all of which start with the letter 'R'. It makes sense then to switch to “Dame” and use the letter D for this piece. In Dutch this presents the problem that “Koning” (King) is a prefix of “Koningin” (Queen), so it makes sense to abbreviate king with K, but it's not clear what letter to assign to the Queen. I suspect the reason for this choice is that the FIDE also establishes an official chess notation where each piece has a single letter abbreviation.

I was about the comment something similar about Dutch, where the word for Queen (“Koningin”) is also more common than the official FIDE-term Lady (“Dame”).

I think the reason is that the article follows the FIDE rules rather than colloquial use. Lady -> Reina/Dama * (You could use either, but the article lists them separately and doesn't recognize Queen, which is the more common of the two)

Chess pieces names in english