Shogi
On this last trip, I flew Japan Airlines (JAL) for the first time. (Usually I fly Star Alliance, but the flight times to Singapore were way more convenient on JAL.) And so I discovered that the entertainment system offers video games! This is a great way to pass the time on a 9-hour flight.
There was a wide selection, including Disney-type games for kids, Go, and shogi. I had never played shogi (meaning "General's game" in Japanese), although I knew it was related to chess.
So I fired it up, selecting the "Easy" level of play against the computer. The hardest part at first was that the directions for the game didn't include linking the characters on the pieces to what type of piece it was. So I knew I had 2 knights, 2 lances, 1 bishop, 1 rook, etc, but I wasn't sure which piece was which.
I figured that out pretty quickly, but soon learned that this is a very difficult game! Nor only do pieces turn into other pieces by getting promoted, but when you capture an opponent's piece, you can put it back on the board and use it in your own force!
This is incredibly powerful. So for instance, each player starts with only one bishop (which hence gives them access to half the board with that piece), but if my bishop gets captured, the computer can put it back on the board and use it against me, so it has two (covering the whole board) and I have none.
No wonder fewer than 1% of shogi games end in a draw.
Actually, though, the "new" (compared to Western chess) pieces were what I found trickiest to adapt to. The gold and silver generals move only one square at a time, and are restricted in how they can move backwards. I am used to chess pieces that can range all over the board (with the exception of the pawns and king). And the knights in shogi cannot move backward! Nor can they move in an L shape that is longer than it is tall-- so they can only move one square to the side and two forward. I forgot this repeatedly.
I got my butt kicked by the computer about 15 times in a row. In that time, I learned how to handle about 2 kinds of opening attack. But the usual pattern was that things would go along for a while, and then suddenly it would all fall apart. I would realize that the computer had trapped me somehow, and I could never recover from it. Dropping pieces (ie, ones captured from the opponent) often took me by surprise, and I haven't figured out the strategies for how/when to do it.
Also, the board always seemed congested. Because so many pieces only move one square, protecting things means placing the protector right next door. (But then I might forget to notice that the bishop was sitting across the board!) Furthermore, being able to drop pieces means that the board does not clear out during the game; it continually stays almost fully loaded.
Shogi is incredibly complex! And fun to play around with, although a human opponent at the beginning would have allowed for quicker learning.
There was a wide selection, including Disney-type games for kids, Go, and shogi. I had never played shogi (meaning "General's game" in Japanese), although I knew it was related to chess.
So I fired it up, selecting the "Easy" level of play against the computer. The hardest part at first was that the directions for the game didn't include linking the characters on the pieces to what type of piece it was. So I knew I had 2 knights, 2 lances, 1 bishop, 1 rook, etc, but I wasn't sure which piece was which.
I figured that out pretty quickly, but soon learned that this is a very difficult game! Nor only do pieces turn into other pieces by getting promoted, but when you capture an opponent's piece, you can put it back on the board and use it in your own force!
This is incredibly powerful. So for instance, each player starts with only one bishop (which hence gives them access to half the board with that piece), but if my bishop gets captured, the computer can put it back on the board and use it against me, so it has two (covering the whole board) and I have none.
No wonder fewer than 1% of shogi games end in a draw.
Actually, though, the "new" (compared to Western chess) pieces were what I found trickiest to adapt to. The gold and silver generals move only one square at a time, and are restricted in how they can move backwards. I am used to chess pieces that can range all over the board (with the exception of the pawns and king). And the knights in shogi cannot move backward! Nor can they move in an L shape that is longer than it is tall-- so they can only move one square to the side and two forward. I forgot this repeatedly.
I got my butt kicked by the computer about 15 times in a row. In that time, I learned how to handle about 2 kinds of opening attack. But the usual pattern was that things would go along for a while, and then suddenly it would all fall apart. I would realize that the computer had trapped me somehow, and I could never recover from it. Dropping pieces (ie, ones captured from the opponent) often took me by surprise, and I haven't figured out the strategies for how/when to do it.
Also, the board always seemed congested. Because so many pieces only move one square, protecting things means placing the protector right next door. (But then I might forget to notice that the bishop was sitting across the board!) Furthermore, being able to drop pieces means that the board does not clear out during the game; it continually stays almost fully loaded.
Shogi is incredibly complex! And fun to play around with, although a human opponent at the beginning would have allowed for quicker learning.
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