Shogi – Japanese Chess

Shogi is the Japanese version of chess. To know more, see the Wikipedia article on Shogi. Although it is recognisably part of the same family as western chess, there are also significant differences. The most obvious ones are that it is played on a 9x9 board, the pieces are flat wedges (all the same colour – each player knows their pieces by the direction the wedges are pointing), there is no Queen (but rather two 'Gold Generals' on either side of the King), captured pieces may be re-entered by their capturer to fight alongside his army, and pieces may be 'promoted' to a higher rank when they reach the last three rows on their opponent's side of the board (the 'promoted' rank is written on the underside of each piece).

Shogi boards and pieces are not easily available in Europe. A few shops may stock them, but they are few and far between. Here in Brussels, Marchand on Rue de Belle Vue, near the top of Avenue Louise, claims to stock Shogi boards and pieces, but when I asked them they did not have any in stock.

So I turned to E-bay, and was very pleasantly surprised. There was a very good 'E-bay shop' selling chess-related articles, including Shogi pieces, at reasonable prices (and not ripping the customer off via inflated 'postage' charges). I placed an order (using Paypal, of course), and waited to see if it would work. And it did! Within 3 working days of placing the order, the pieces were delivered from Japan to Brussels!

The picture below shows my new Shogi set, arranged on a board that I made myself:

This picture shows the 'promoted' sides of the pieces, which are always written in red ink). As can be seen, some pieces do not promote – the King and the Gold Generals:

This picture shows the shape of the pieces more clearly: