talen314:
Sounds interesting. I will to solve 5-move and 7-move tsume with pleasure, but what is the "Ladder"? What rules?

Is there any interest in a Tsume Shogi ladder?  I have numerous sources for problems that I picked up while living in Japan that have problems for all levels of players.  The magazine "Shogi Sekai" also often includes small books of such problems.  There are also books of problems of the "what is the best move" type.  Some are specific to certain openings and others are more general.
Talen314

bakashogi:
Thank you for your response!
I modified the file setup.ini.
Now, the version 1,5 of "spear" became active but does not work when I click on "start".
This version of spear is compatible?

I think you can find all the needed information at their forum: http://groups.google.com/group/BCMShogi
So far I know, there is "just" a .ini file to properly configure.

The engine by default of this program is the version 1.4 of Spear.
Do you know how we can configure BCM for that it plays with the last version of Spear, the version 1.5?

Good article on One-turn loss Bishop Exchange has been translated into English on Shogipedia at http://wiki.81squareuniverse.com/index.php?title=Lectures_on_the_Latest_Strategies,_Chapter_1

DragonKing: You're welcome. Good to know that's exactly you were looking for.

takodori: Thank YOU! This is it- sorry I didn't log in here for several weeks. This is it exactly.

A good article about one-turn loss bihsop exchange is available to read here. It's the translation of the chapter one of the book written by 6-dan Kiyokazu Katsumata.

http://wiki.81squareuniverse.com/index.php?title=Lectures_on_the_Latest_Strategies,_Chapter_1

DragonKing:
I think this is it.
http://shogi-isps.org/whtats_new_isps/2008/08/opening-strateg.html

FromHell: This is a different database, but it contains almost the same information. THANK YOU!

DragonKing: Perhaps you meant this page: http://homepage3.nifty.com/nneo/index_en.html

I used to have a link to a database that listed various openings and what professional games they were played in- I used it in conjunction with Grimbergen's pages. I have lost the link- anynoe know what I'm talking about?

DragonKing: In the game itself?

Well, if you have already submitted your move, and they haven't viewed the game yet, you can go back to it and click "Edit" near the top, and add a message. If they have already viewed the game (but not yet played) you cannot do that.

I hope that is what you meant.

How do I send a note to the other player that is on the page where the game is being played?

<3

The tentative version of the book "Silicon Valley kara Shogi wo Miru" was translated into English to read through the following linked pages.

Top page of the project
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/

Preface - 'Non-playing Shogi Fan' Declaration
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Preface

Chapter 1 - Yoshiharu Habu and 'Changing Modern Shogi
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-1

Chapter 2 - (about Sato Yasumitsu and the commentary of 1st game of
79th Kisei-sen in the year 2008)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-2

Chapter 3 (about the enjoyment of watching Shogi)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-3

Chapter 4 (about Fukaura Koichi)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-4

Chapter 5 (about the commentary of 1st game of 21st Ryuoh-sen in the
year 2008)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-5

Chapter 6 (about Watanabe Akira)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-6

Chapter 7 (Table talk between Habu and the author)
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Chapter-7

Postscript
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Postscript

Acknowledgments
http://modernshogi.pbworks.com/Acknowledgments

The book containing 291 pages was released on April 25. The reason
why
English translation emerged so early is that Umeda Mochio, the
author,
declared to allow the book to be freely translated into any languages
to be
published anywhere on the Net in the form of web content on his blog
entry
of April 20, 5 days before the release. And an open source style
project of translation of it has been kicked by shotayakushiji since
April 29 and then
15 Japanese people including myself came together to generate the
tentative version linked above.

I'm sure this will instantly be one of most interesting reading
materials in
English about shogi.

You can not only read the contents but also participate in brushing up
the translation since the translation is still tentative and the
project is
proceeding in an Open Source style. In order to take part in the
project,
having a PBworks account will be required. And you can kick the
translation project of it into other languages than English and
French.
(PJ for French translation by Yamada Yoshihisa, see the link both in
Japanese and French below;
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yoshihisa_yamada/20090509/1241832915 )

Here are some links to the contents related to this project for our
reference.

* Emerging Open Source Translation Projects in Japan
http://www.mobinode.com/2009/05/09/emerging-open-source-translation-p...

* Open-source style translation project "Shogi" book
http://hogacentral.blogs.com/japan_tech_blog/2009/05/opensouce-style-...

Shogi-Silicon Valley Book open to the world
* http://www.yokoishikura.com/english/?p=381

http://www.gamerz.net/


has it !!

fukuhara: There is indeed a site that offers Chu Shogi, as well as Dai Shogi & Tenjiku Shogi ... http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv
If you ever wish to play, my userid there is tkr101010 as well.

The game courier on Chess Variants also offers Chu Shogi, but the interface isn't as nice, http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/index.html


I just want more sites to offer more variants :) BrainKing's got the nicest interface and plenty of people play shogi here anyway, so adding Chu seems logical.

fukuhara: Why not keeping the original name "chu shogi"?

TKR101010: Great idea. I haven't heard any online sites that has one. But the name cannot be chu shogi which literally means Middle-sized shogi. Any idea for a cool English name?

Does anyone think that Chu Shogi will ever become available for play on this site?

Date: May 28th to 31th, 2009.
Venue: Assembly Hall of Déri Museum, Déri tér 1, Debrecen, Hungary
Time limits: 30 minutes + 60 seconds byo-yomi

For more information, please visit
http://magyarsogi.fw.hu/

It's to be held on April 10 to 12, 2009 in San Francisco. The application deadline is March 27. For more information, please visit the followings;

http://www.nyshogi.com/en/index_en.html
http://groups.google.com/group/shogi-l/browse_thread/thread/7bd3c111c8c001a4/245af1e633ba553f?show_docid=245af1e633ba553f

The New York Shogi Club cordially invites you to The 3rd Shogi World Championship Tournament, to be held
in the weekend of November 13-15,2009, in New York, supported by the Nihon Shogi Renmei and the City of
New York, among other sponsors.
The winner will be awarded with the title of The Amateur Shogi World Champion, along with the cash prize of
US$3,000!
As was the case in the past, we require a preliminary tournament to be held in each country by the summer of
2009, and the winner of the preliminary tournament in each country will be invited to the World Championship Tournament in New York, with the travel and hotel expenses to be paid by the organizer. All other participants are of course welcome at their own expenses.
The 1st Shogi World Championship Tournament was held in New York in May of 2000, and Mr. Katsumasa Egoshi of Brazil became the 1st Amateur Shogi World Champion. In the following year, we planned the second tournament, but it was obstructed by the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York. We are pleased to have theopportunity to hold the 3rd tournament next year, and we hope to see you all in New York next November.
The tournament details will be announced from time to time by the New York Shogi Club, and will be posted on the websites at www.nyshogi.com and www.worldshogi.com
We need to contact the presidents or the leaders of all Shogi clubs around the world in preparation for this
tournament.
Those who are in that role, please give your email address to our Public Relations Director, Mr.Tomohiro Kubo kubo@worldshogi.com

Thank you,

New York Shogi Club
November 8,2008

There might be problems having Popii shogi here as it was originally designed as an advertising gimmick for a life insurance company. In any case it's a very limited game. On the other hand, we have permission to use Kyoto shogi, which is an excellent game.

That promotion rule isn't unique, it occurs in the larger historical shogi variants.

There is an interesting shogi variant called Microshogi, aka Five-minute Poppy Shogi, played on a 4x5 board. It has a unique promotion rule - whenever a piece makes a capture it flips over and becomes the piece shown on the other side. The full rules are here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/shogivariants.dir/poppysh.html
I think it would be an interesting addition to the site. Minishogi players would particularly enjoy it.

Thanks.

See here: http://yamajunnshoginews.blogspot.com/2008/12/shogi-news-21st-ryuo-sen-7-games-title_18.html

Does anyone know where I can find the Ryu-O final game online?

HIDETCHI continuously released his lessons. Each of them is approximately 10 minute long.

Lessons#1-10
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=587865CAE59EB84A&page=1


Lessons#11-20
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=587865CAE59EB84A&page=2


Lessons#21-30(29&30 will be upcoming soon)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=587865CAE59EB84A&page=3

Have fun.

They are for complete novices/beginners. So far today, there appeared 18 lessons. It's still ongoing.

Playlist: How to play Shogi(将棋)
Description: Shogi lessons in English. I will teach you how to play Japanese Chess, Shogi.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=587865CAE59EB84A

bakashogi:
Wrong link. All my apologizes.
The right one is: http://www.shogi.fr/web/shogi/shogi_fr.nsf/ryuo2008.html

For shogi players being interested in meeting the best shogi players of the world, I would like to inform you that the first match of the RyuO sen will take place in Paris on the 18+19 October 2008.
An eve cocktail is open to everybody on the 17.10.2008. There you'll be able to meet many well-known shogi players.
All details in french at http://www.shogi.fr/ryuo2008.html.
document in english to downloaded at the same place.

ABSTRAKTA SHOGI TOURNAMENT 2008

6 players out of min. 16 until now.

any more takers? :)

ABSTRAKTA SHOGI TOURNAMENT 2008

I have a set of Westernized Pieces. Does anyone know a good site (besides wwwYutopian.com) to buy a board to go with them; as well the approximate cost? I live in The United States and do not know foriegn currency exchange rates; so could a responder let me know prices in United States Currency. TED

I am happy to introduce two new Taiwan players that could in future be the regional champion.

They mainly play at shogidojo and their current rating is about
qswdefg: 240
siydira: 220

I guess their BKR rating could be around 1600-1900

I will invite both to brainking and I hope they will do well here.

fukuhar

rod03801:

I don't regularly play other games besides shogi and chess. I go to Yahoo Pool when I don't want to not think, lol. So, I don't know how this would be used in other games. If you think it is a "feature request" for the site as a whole, please post it there. Another thing to be aware of is, if someone comes on this server to play shogi, it is more likely that they would have visited the shogi forum and have it linked than the feature request forum. In that case, I think it would be beneficial to list non-specific game forums below the banner. If there are too many list, my question then is, does there need to be that many? Is it possible to condense if there are too many?

jadarite: LOL.. I think this would actually be a great suggestion for the Feature Requests discussion board. But hey, it works here too, as far as I'm concerned.

I think polls of many sorts would be very useful and fun for the site.

I thought I should post here instead of the feature request area cause people are more likely to give more pertinent feedback for this suggestion. I hope it's ok, I want to post the same one in the European chess forum also.

I think it would be a neat feature to be able to interact some way. One suggestion I made before was to add chat. Another idea would be to allow "game polling". This would be applied to strategic games like chess and shogi, and NOT to games like card games.

People would NOT be allowed to suggest moves, but they could have an overall vote on the position/progress of the game. A simple example of this would be, "Who do you think has the advantage? Black or White?" Each person has one vote, which is seen anonymously. As the game advances, you may switch your position or keep it if you think the same person still has the advantage.

End result would read something like, "60% think white has the advantage out of 10 total".

Ok, so, I pose the same thing in a different way, is this a good idea or completely dumb? Sorry, you can't be anonymous in this poll LOL

Yes, my suggestion has short lines for the directions the piece can move one square; long lines for directions where the piece can move one or two squares to.

Now, I think there are Shogi variants with pieces that may move (as opposed to jump) two squares in a direction, but not one square. We'd need something else if Fencer would ever implement such a Shogi variant.

jadarite: from AbigailII: "One way to show the Eagle: arrows up-left, up-right, down. short lines up, right, left. longer lines down-left and down-right."

jurek:

"short lines were blue and the long ones red", can you tell me what you mean by that? Lines seem to be the same length, it's just a matter of showing and arrow "->" for multiple squares (rook, bishop move) compared to just a "-" for one square (king, pawn, silver, gold). That already seems to be solved from the wiki page which has a circle instead of a line for single squared moves.

portugal: Different colors to go along with the different lengths would help differentiate them, too. For example, if the short lines were blue and the long ones red.

harmy:

If there is interest in learning the characters, I can make something to help learn them. I think that aspect is better to be kept separate from the actual playing of the game.

Long/short arrows seems a good option, if they don't look too similar. :)

Another option, that I would like, would be to have pieces with movement indicators along with the Chinese/Japanese characters. That way people who didn't know the characters could play the game and also learn the characters.

portugal: One way to show the Eagle: arrows up-left, up-right, down. short lines up, right, left. longer lines down-left and down-right.

This is closest to how the current Shogi/MiniShogi pieces are: straight arrows for slides, curved arrows for jumps, lines for steps. (Mini)Shogi doesn't have pieces that can step two places though, hence the short/long lines.

Alternatively, I'd settle for images of falcons, geese, quails, eagles, cranes, swallows and phoenixes.

There could be 2 sets of westernized pieces for Tori Shogi. One set is the same size as the Japanese set, it would have "G" for goose, "E" for eagle. You would be expected to know how the game is played, but not the Chinese characters.

The other set would have bigger pieces and could have the word "goose" under "+Sw", "eagle" under "+Fa" along with movement indicators.