From: Pieter Stouten <STOUTEN <at> EMBL <dot> BITNET>
Date: 15 may 1990
Subject: Differences between Chess and Shogi (picked earlier from CHESS-L)

Here follows as promised John Kenney's article about differences between
Chess and Shogi strategies. It has appeared on the Chess Discussion List
earlier. This is the last thing from CHESS-L that I'll post to SHOGI-L.
So subscribers to CHESS-L should not worry too much about the wagon loads
of mail they get from these lists.
I tried to post it yesterday, but for some reason did not get through.
 
Pieter Stouten (bitnet: stouten@embl).
 
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In reference to Ben Buckner's comments on the comparison of Shogi and Chess, as
a player of both games, I would say they have the same flavor, with several
major differences.  The most important difference is the use of captured
pieces.  The ablity to drop a captured piece anywhere (with certain
restrictions) on the board coupled with the limited mobility of most pieces
emphasizes the mating of the king (rather than gaining material, or
establishing a positional advantage which does directly attack the king).  For
example, promoting a pawn in chess is a valid goal; however, in shogi this is
not important unless it is promoted in the neighborhood of the opposing king.
Therefore, in Shogi the position is much more important than material.  In
fact, even though some pieces are more "powerful" than others, there is no
points system (eg., as in Chess the knight = 3, the queen = 9) to equate
pieces, rather piece placement indicates its value (more like a binary switch:
may lead to mate = 1, far from enemy king = 0; then if you have more 1s
attacking than your opponent has defending, you win).  With respect to the
question about control of the center:  In Shogi control of territory is less
stressed than in Chess, and the edges are just as important as the center
(in fact the rule of thumb is to control the entire fifth rank); and by the
middle game this no longer matters - only the attack the king matters.
This may sound a bit strange, but try playing a game and you'll quickly
(esp., if you play Chess) see what is happening.
                                John (KENNEY@EMBL)