Gamers` Esperanto or Thesaurus of Shogi

Sergej Korchitskij
(1 dan, Belarus)

From the Stone Age people have tried to understand each other and made some certain efforts on this way. But even today, living in the communal flat of developed post-industrial world, we face real problems in seeking a common language. Neither ancient Latin with its famous but forgotten centuries ago international status, nor an international language Esperanto, invented by Warsaw doctor Liudvig Zamengof in 1887, weren�t able to unite the mankind. And it�s doubtful that the �language of hamburgers and Hollywood� would be able to cope with this problem too. But it looks like by the beginning of the third millennium the humanity got out of the system and decided to unite on the other basis. Fortunately, the information-orientated society whose wonder-making icon is the boundless Internet gives all the opportunities for this. That�s why various global communities and subcultures have grown up like mushrooms after a warm shower: beer tins collectors, fighters for the rights of insects, lovers of beach sex before, after and during beach volley, the followers of great gurus, the followers of the followers of great gurus and so on, and so forth� First you may not notice separate groups of strange people calling themselves �gamers� in this bright crowd of simply happy, thoroughly satisfied and, if you are lucky, finally enlightened people. But these mysterious gamers, the Priests of Fortune and Intellect, are not united as well because they play completely different games and, therefore, like all other mortals, wander around their own Tower of Babel unable to understand each other. This means new searches, new contacts and new efforts to become closer to your �brothers in intellect�. Exactly these efforts brought me and many of my friends into the striking and unusual world of Shogi. Even though we didn�t know where we were going, we came from different gaming traditions, professional fields of activities, groups of interests. And unintentionally a thought crept in: perhaps, these twenty two-dimensional five-cornered pieces are that sacred alphabet, information about which is kept in our genetic memory? Anyway, everyone found in the game something personal, made up an imaginary individual map that is more or less close to the reality. And if Japanese chess are really gamers` Esperanto, then, like any other language, it lacks an explanatory dictionary that would explain the senses of Shogi in the other games� languages.

Shogi vs Chess

Undoubtedly, Shogi is a game of chess type with pieces of different values and even bigger hierarchy than in European chess (there are eight types of troops, and in European chess � only six). Almost equally feeble infantrymen bring up the rear both in the West and in the East. Both these games have the main piece � King that moves, captures, gets attacked and captivated in the same way. Relations between chess and Shogi don�t need any proves, that�s why in would be more interesting to talk about their differences in this dictionary entry. But since the main distinction between Shogi and Chess is the similarities between Shogi and other intellectual games, an interested reader should consult all the other dictionary entries.

Shogi vs Go

If Chess and Shogi are blood brothers separated since their birth, Shogi and Go are stepbrothers living under one roof for a long time. But their similarities are not limited by their residence in the East. Firstly, in the great triad of logical games (Chess, Shogi and Go) just Shogi and Go have hyper immunity from artificial intelligence. Even great Garry Kasparov couldn�t resist the pressure of an electric monster, but neither of Shogi and Go professionals has ever lost a game to a computer. That�s understandable: the number of different combinations that can appear in these Eastern games easily surpasses the analogous rate in European chess. This perceptible advantage is the consequence of the dropping rule, because a really existing piece on the board has fewer opportunities to drop than a virtual piece which can do it on any free point. It�s amazing how just one rule (but what a rule!) can bring together two completely different games. One of the basic conceptions in both Shogi and Go is �shape� which can be bad or good. In traditional chess the conception of shape doesn�t exist. Of course, close cooperation of pieces is necessary, but the main thing is their ability to work. Even if their positions are doubtful � there are no dynamics, no effective ways or time to find fault with unaesthetic disposition of forces in these Middle Ages of dropping. For the same reason both Eastern games have a conception of �adji�, or potential, which stands for some weakness in the opponent�s position that could be used only in some peculiar coincidence lost in the abyss of variants; but you can�t build all the strategy from the beginning to the end of the game on this weakness as it often happens in more stagnant international chess. The indirect influence on the distant areas of the board in both Shogi and Go is also notable. In Go this influence is carried out by the �k� rule and the rule of ladder (�shicho�), while in Shogi the rule of recurrent pieces� usage exists; anyway one-step-mover generals would have remained just local pieces. In European chess the whole idea of �the distant corner of the board� sounds a bit weird taking into account the killing power of chess pieces.

Shogi and Go are also united by their high-ranking in the world of intellectual games: they are its acknowledged kings. And not only because of their �wealthy exchequer� consisting of endless amount of possible variants. Their inner vividness and unpredictability are totally different from rational chess� and draughts� mechanisms which suffer from the terrible corrosion called �the draw death�. Often �the mincing machine� of feudal wars grinds the chess-and-draughts contingent and makes further actions senseless. Shogi and Go are models of ultra-contemporary extra-accurate war which result is decided on different fronts but not in a short-time affair. That�s why a more delicate game administration is needed, and the number of draws in both games is scanty. Only 3% of Shogi games come to draw, in Go it�s impossible in general because of the nonintegral number of points in �komi� (compensation for the first move in the game). And even without this rule a draw would be a rare final in Go.

The last but not the least, Shogi and Go form peculiar and similar points of view on the game including high ideas of balance and harmony. Shogi and Go philosophy is similar even on the level of different maxims that could be used in both games. For example, �your opponent�s best move is your best move� or �drop there where your opponent wants to drop�.

Shogi vs Draughts

One would think, what can bring together Shogi and this uncomplicated game? You�re not right, there�s much in common despite the banal flatness of main play characters. The most significant and the most attractive similarity is the absence of the much talked-about first move advantage. The famous principle �white are for the win, black are for the draw� works in chess, and in Go the beginner of a game gives his opponent obligatory point compensation (�komi�) for the right of first move which often plays fatal role in the final result. But in Shogi and draughts this balance is initially not upset, so that the artists of the future could draw goddesses of these games (a la Kaissa in chess) with bandages on their eyes like much talked-about Justice, the goddess of Justice. Draughts is in general closer to the Shogi mentality than to the chess one. All draughts confess samurai ethics which doesn�t allow them to leave the battlefield. A Pawn, a Knight and a Lance follow exactly this ethics in Japanese chess. Golden and Silver Generals should also be labeled as courageous samurais whose �backward movement� is difficult compared to the general forward movement. The most important middle game aim in Shogi, after all the obligatory opening preparations are finished, is the breakthrough to the enemy camp. Ordinary draughts are obsessed with the same idea, dreaming of raising their ranks and becoming the King at the rear of their enemy. Democratic draughts provides those �freedom, equality, fraternity� from which feudal chess are really far because they almost entirely exclude class mobility. Some special allowances are made only for a Pawn. But in Shogi any piece can promote its class, and not in only one but in last three lines! Note that only value of draughts is mirrored in Shogi. There is the mirror of European chess to reflect the draw death and available for the artificial intelligence number of variants�

Shogi vs Othello

There�s no other game in which the idea of opposites� unity and struggle is expressed as vividly as in Shogi and Othello. There�re no friendly and enemy troops, no strong and no weak ones, no blacks and no whites� There is only the eternal stream of changes. What caused this unique point of view on the game? Perhaps, the Yin-Yang conception, or the reincarnation study, or marvelous descriptions of metamorphosis by Ovid or Apuley? Anyway, you are not quite sure who are in front of you on the board: a man, an insect, an animal, a demon or a divine. Double-sided Othello counters are painted with two colours at the same time while Shogi pieces don�t have any colours at all but are of a non-symmetrical five-cornered shape. Othello�s counters turn over all the time, changing the situation out of all recognition with every move. Shogi pieces can both turn around and turn over, and during the game �the idiot�s dream� of using the opponent�s piece repeatedly comes true.

The whole game, being the brightest representative of chess family, is oppressed by its genetics, sometimes trying to shed decrepit skin - just like the ambivalent centrifugal and centripetal impulse of Shogi pieces, expressed by their edge�s direction. And even if mutual intrusion of both Kings (�impass� or �jishogi �) happens during the game (although this situation is really rare - only in one duel of five hundred!), the result of the game, that can�t end in a checkmate, i.e. it has lost its chess reasonability, is decided just like in Othello � by point counting. Because (not taking into account the huge difference between both games) only Shogi and Othello are marked with an androgen label.

Shogi vs Renju

Renju counters are not able to move and destroy each other, but they are devoured with the same spirit of purposefulness as Shogi pieces. The cherished chain of five stones is as important as the enemy monarch capture. Have a look at other games � what is the aim for restless players: to kill everybody and everything in your opponent�s troops, to establish dominance over the largest part of a huge board, to get more while spending less. And in European chess? To win a modest Pawn, to exchange the material, to turn �Little Pawn� into Queen, to finish off naked and miserable King left without his castle, suite and troops. It�s all completely different in Renju and Shogi. If in Renju it is a designation � in Shogi it is "tsume" (a threat of forced checkmate); in Renju two non-intersecting wins � in Shogi "hasami" (situation when the king is gripped and threatened by a checkmate from both sides and is unable to defend), in Renju it is check � and in Shogi it is check! Irrepressible and valiant checkmate attack is the quintessence of these two games, their pivot, the perspective point in which all plans, thoughts and variants cross. But, as fate willed, this swift game stream runs into an artificial barrier built by strict rules and the foul rule in particular. And fouls exist only in Renju and Shogi (to say nothing of basketball!), though they appeared because of different reasons. In Renju forbidden �forks� exist as an atonement of intellectual games� �original sin�; that stands for the abovementioned advantage of the first move which is compensated by the row of pin absence in the arsenal of a player who begins the game. And fouls in Shogi are the guards of harmony, called for protecting logic and clearness of the game. Only one foul has a more historical and cultural meaning than the play one. It is "uchi-fu-tsume" � a checkmate made by a dropping Pawn. But taking into account that there are 18 Pawns in a Shogi set, protecting them from weakest side�s king hyperactivity doesn�t sound like a bad idea!

Just Shogi

I think it�s obvious why so many people are obsessed exactly by Shogi. They don�t have the first move advantage; the number of variants is so big that computer cannot compete with pros; the game has uncompromising open character and is not threatened by a draw death. Shogi are dynamic and kaleidoscopical. They don�t lack deep inner philosophy and esthetics. Although the game is ancient, it manages to be fashionable and up-to-date. And also original since Shogi description cannot be limited just by listing its similarities with other intellectual games. It has its peculiar colouring that appeared on the basis of the complicated rules, which had evolved through centuries. For example, only in Shogi pieces can do four operations: move, capture each other, promote and drop on the board. Only in Shogi the law of conservation of energy works: all 40 pieces begin and finish the game unlike the games in which playing characters appear from nowhere and disappear in nowhere. Only in Shogi the number of variants grows by the end of the game � and in geometrical progression! The number of free points and, therefore, moves becomes smaller in the end game in popular in the East Go, Renju and Othell� (that resembles suffering from over-population Asian countries); in European chess, on the contrary, the plague of exchanges mows nearly all the troops and this demographical crisis (just like in the modern West) leads to the decrease of the number of possible variants. There are not so many moves in draughts not depending on the game period, and the moment of bifurcation appears in the end game: either the game chooses a �chess� variant of mutual destruction and depopulation or the number of variants grows a bit in Queen end games. And harmony and permanency on the background of forward complication of position reign in Shogi. During the game we watch a striking mystery of spirit liberation, when rough matter turns into energy, jumps to a completely different level, and by the end of the duel its meaning nearly comes to zero. You can never see such a neglect of tangible and material in any other game!

Very much could be told about Japanese chess Shogi. But it�s impossible to disclose their secret in words, in a distance from the board. It�s as impossible as expressing in words the moon shine, the noise of wind and the taste of a kiss. That�s why the continuation of Shogi Explanation Dictionary everyone who is absorbed with the game should write himself�

Translation of Victor Yushkevich