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| Shogi King and foot soldier - just for size reference - my foot is 30cm. |
But even before that, I played a lot of board games, with Monopoly being a personal favourite - having only lost a game when I entered sponsored competitions, or recently when I have to let my five-year-old win. I also usually get my butt trounced in Scrabble by my wife, a very frustrating event for someone who does daily crossword puzzles in ink and is a writer by trade (not even including my two blogs!).
Despite my supremacy in games like Monopoly, one board game I love is Chess. I'm good, but I'm not Bobby Fischer great. I'm not going to end a match in five moves. I play by gut, and I usually aquit myself well enough to not be embarrassed.
Japan also plays the same chess I do, but there is another similar but completely different version of chess that is Japanese. It's called Shogi. Translated Sho = General (military rank) and Gi = boardgame.
If you didn't know that Chess and Shogi were training grounds for Generals, you do now. It's all about strategy and planning your moves far ahead in the future and adjusting accordingly, all to make the opposition fall into your trap, while avoiding traps set up for you.
Check out the photo of the Shogi piece on the left. It's a King/ōshō piece. It's also a piece of art carved and painted by the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) Superintendent who presented the piece to me a present one day - it wasn't a birthday or anniversary or Christmas or anything. It was a Friday, I believe. And that's why it's cool.
Maybe it's because I'm a stranger in their employ or just one in the country, but I found the Japanese to be overly generous in their time and friendship.
Enough about peace and goodwill towards gaijin (foreigners), let's talk about war - as in Shogi. I'm not going to tell you how to play - for that there are many good sites that can do that, like THIS one. I'm just going to describe the basics. Personally, I don't know how to play - that's because I only have this one giant over-sized novelty piece of art - but what I do know about Shogi is that it is very, very similar to chess, in that the game pieces have similar moving abilities to chess.
First, let's look at the board - here's a link to a typical Shogi board. Forget about the face of the board, check out the way it sits. It's impressive.
Okay... now look at the board's face in the same photo. There are 81 squares. The goal is to capture your opponents King.
Now, according to what history I know, Shogi - or at least something resembling it, had its origins in India around the 6th century and was brought to Japan via China in the 8th century where the Japanese added their own rules to make the game their own.
All of the games pieces are five-sided oblongs like the one in my photos at the top, and have the name of the piece marked in black (like mine) or in red (unlike mine) denoting the two sides.
The games pieces are:
King/ōshō, which can - like in chess - move in any direction, but only one square at a time. There is only one king per side.
Rook (or a Castle)/hisha - also one piece per side, it can move in a manner similar to a chess rook/castle:
Bishop/kakugyō - one piece per army, it moves diagonally like the bishop.
Gold General/kinshō - two per side, it moves diagonally in any direction except backwards, but only one square at a time. - Okay, now I'm getting confused!
Silver General/ginshō - two per side, it moves forward and diagonally one square at a time.
Knight/keima: two each, it moves diagonally forward two squares and can jump other pieces, so it is similar to the Chess knight... except of course, a knight can move backwards.
Lance/kyōsha - two each, it moves forward.
Pawn/fuhyō - nine per side, this piece moves one square forward - like a Chess pawn.
While it may be a difficult game for the casual observer to even begin wrapping one's head around, I can tell you that as an experienced Chess player, it is a game you will enjoy - it will make you think. And we can all do a lot more thinking.
Somewhere it's my turn,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by Edwin Starr: GOODGODYALL
PS: I beat my wife at Scrabble in a near-three-hour epic battle of Scrabble! I'm sure we will play again - unless I continue to win. 2011 is better already.
PPS: The piece of wood my Superintendent used to carve my Shogi tile for me - I just counted the tree rings visible to me (I can't count the outer rings, because they've been eliminated in the carving process). Let's just say the piece of wood he used was over 180-years-old. And that was 20 years ago. That means this wood/tree was around when the Shogun and samurai where still ruling the roost in Japan. Now that's a thoughtful present.
