From: Pieter Stouten <STOUTEN <at> EMBL <dot> BITNET>
Date: 23 may 1990
Subject: Re: computer shogi???

On 21 May 1990 David Feldman asks:
 
>Can anyone report on the status of shogi playing computer programs?  Are
>any available (a)commercially (in Japan perhaps?)) or (b) as shareware or
>freeware?  How strong are the best programs?  Is shogi harder to program
>effectively than chess, say because of dropping, the larger board or
>because pawns don't become locked making truly cramped positions rare?
>Is shogi as difficult to program as go?  Is there any AI literature on
>the subject beside Levy's book.
 
Please find below an extract from an e-mail that I sent Chris Sterritt
some time ago:
"... More important, however, is that Mr. Iida's work for his Masters
or PhD (not clear) at university involved writing Shogi playing programs
and he has just released a commercial Shogi program. It is supposed to
be the strongest ever to have entered the market and he and a friend
of his have full copyright. It runs only on Japanese PC's and PC's with
Japanese OS's. As far as I understood him he favours the idea of spreading
the program outside Japan and is willing to provide the source (in C).
Of course there will be lots of ifs and conditions before the source
code is shipped. ... "
 
Mr. Hiroyuki Iida is 5-dan professional and everybody interested in
writing Shogi programs or obtaining Shogi programs is welcome to contact
him at: Nihon Shogi Renmei
           attn. Mr. Hiroyuki Iida
        2-39-9 Sendagaya
        Shibuya-ku
        Tokyo, Japan.
 
So: there are commercial programs; I have not seen any freeware or
shareware programs. The best programs are roughly 7 kyu, which is
midway between a pure beginner and a (Chess-like) ELO rating of 1900.
Shogi is harder to program than Chess and this certainly has to do with
drops. Mr. Iida told me that apart from Chess-like techniques also a
pattern approach similar to Go is used, but he did not go into details.
I do not know about any literature on the subject. If you contact Mr.
Iida, you can ask him ...
 
   Pieter Stouten
   bitnet: stouten@embl