From: Howard Wachtel UICVM BITNET> Date: 10 oct 1994 Subject: Re: Chess and Shogi I am a master at chess and somewhere around 5-kyu at Shogi, which the reader may consider regarding my opinions below. > I have described the advantages of Shogi over Wester Chess as follows: > > 1) It handicaps very well, unlike chess, so that players of differing > strengths can play together with the stronger always winning, as in chess. Agreed. In chess even a single pawn is too much material for odds giving between average club players. > 2) Like GO, the handicaps are designed to teach specific lessons about > the game, so that mastering handicap games one can apply that knowledge > to even games. I don't play GO, so I cannot fully appreciate this analogy. Certainly one can apply knowledge from handicap games to even games, but I don't see that handicaps are "designed to teach specific lessons about the game", but rather to give the weaker player a better chance of pulling off an upset victory. > 3) Most professional chess games end in draws. Tha depends what you mean by "most". I would guess that at the top level more than half of games are drawn, but not an overwhelming majority (consider the recent Candidates' Matches for example--most games were decisive). On the other hand, at the club level the vast majority of games are decisive, and at the beginner level nearly all are decisive. >Almost no shogi games end > in draws. That can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. If you work hard on a game for a few hours but are unable to win, in Shogi you have nothing to show for your efforts, while in chess you at least have a chance to muster half a point. Having been one tempo away from victory is not much consolation if you have a zero in the tournament table. >If most football games ended in draws, no one would watch > football. True but not really relevant--the reason that (American) football is popular is that Americans seem to like to watch big muscular guys clobber each other. Shogi will never become popular in the US as a spectator sport because, like chess, it requires mental exertion on the part of the spectators as well as the players, and unlike chess, the best American Shogi players cannot compete with the best Shogi players in the world. There will be no Bobby Fischer in Shogi. > 4) Because the material is always in circulation, the endgames of shogi > are much more interesting than endgames in chess. I tend to agree, although that depends on which game you like best overall. The term "endgame" means completely different things in the two games--in chess you have the decrease in material force which leads to a shift in focus from direct attack on the enemy King to attempts to create and promote a passed pawn, whereas in Shogi the endgame features a direct attack on the King. Certainly most chess endings are not boring, though I find many of the endings reached in top-level games to be rather boring. A problem I have with chess endings is that different types of endgames (Knight endings, same-color Bishop endings, opposite Bishop endings, bare pawn endings, etc.) often have completely different principles which need to be learned. Also if you learn thoroughly one of these types of endings, say Knight endings, it may be another several hundred tournament games before you encounter such an endgame yourself, by which time you may have already forgotten most of what you've learned. That makes chess endings rather difficult to study. In fact, shogi > endgames resemble backgammon games in they are more of a race than > anything else. Because both players usually have enough material > to attempt their fiendish plans, both players are working to checkmate > the other's king at the same time. This means that in shogi, if you > can defend against the enemy mate attempt, you can immediately turn > around and try to push your own. That can happen in chess too, but not nearly as often as in Shogi. >Even if you lose, you can often say > that just a single tempo at the end might have brought you victory. So what? Will you give me half a point for that? :-) > In chess, by contrast, a successful defense against mate usually > turns into one side or the other playing for a draw. BORING. Not necessarily. First of all, draws are not always boring. Also, usually the side with the inferior position is going to be playing for a draw no matter what, regardless of whether there has been a mating attack. Often after an unsuccessful mating attack, the attacker will have to resign right away, as he is far behind in material. > 5) Western Chess is dominated by analysis of the openings: I'd estimate > that 90% off all material published on chess > club and competitive level, players book up on the opening > system of their choice. I agree with the second sentence but not the first. There may be more books on openings that the other phases, but that does not mean that the opening dominates the game of chess. Quite the opposite--even if you get a small advantage out of the opening (which is the best you can hope for agains a halfway decent opponent), you still need to know what to do with that advantage, or you will cede the initative to your opponent. I think that opening preparation is a bit overemphasized. One thing that bothers me about chess, however, is the explosion of chess information and huge databases. This is making it more costly and time consuming to prepare for tournaments. (I don't know how to prepare for a Shogi tournament, on the other hand.) >There is much more scope for creativity > in Shogi, and much less scope for memorization of opening systems. Maybe too much! There are almost no books in English on Shogi openings. I have no idea how to go about preparing for a Shogi tournament--I don't know that much about any of the standard castles, and playing over top level games doesn't help much, as there is no one to explain why the master did this or that or why he didn't grab that hanging piece. Shogi has no ECO or Informant, nor any source for annotated games (in English). > 6) Shogi is much more exciting than Western Chess. As noted before, > there are fewer draws, and both players tend to be playing offensively > at once, or at least advancing an offensive plan while defending. > Further, there are more captures, sacrifices, and exchanges in Shogi > than in Chess; and many more elaborate combinations. Shogi has a > sharper and more exciting tactical feel than western chess. I generally agree with the above. > 7) Western Chess is doomed as a game that people play for enjoyment. I rather doubt it. If anything, competitive chess is more in danger than chess for fun, thanks to the advent of stronger chess playing computers. > In fifty years, chess will be about as popular as checkers is today. Again, highly unlikely. The World Open will still be a big draw in 50 years. > Already, chess programs and chess machines available in any game > store for no more than a few hundred dollars play at Master Level, > and can beat over 99% of all players. It is only a matter of a decade > at most until a computer program can reliably beat the World Chess > Champion. The first sentence is unquestionably true, but the second is highly debatable. I personally do not think that a computer will beat the human World Champion in my lifetime (at standard time controls, not action), but it could happen eventually. Even if that does happen, chess players debate the impact that this will have on the game. >The tendancy towards draws and the reliance on memorizing > opening analysis has sucked the life out of this once beautiful game. As mentioned above, the "tendency toward draws" is only at the top level (2600 and above), and opening analysis is highly overrated, and in my opinion, does not make the game less interesting. It just means that the nasty opening surprises will be uncorked on move 20 instead of move 11 or 12. > 8) In all my years as a salesman, I could never honestly recommend that > any customer attend their local chess club or competition. Chess > clubs tend to attract arrogant and anti-social persons who do their > best to humiliate their opponents and do nothing to welcome new > players to their ranks. Having attended and organized several U.C.S.F. > tournaments in California, I can honestly say that I would not spend > time with these people by choice. While I haven't met very many other > shogi players, they have been universally warm and encouraging. This is sad but often very true. The bad apples are always more easily noticed than the good ones. Not enough credit is given to gentlemanly players such as Bisguier or Larsen, while the top players are often rude and ill-mannered like Kamsky and Fischer. My guess is that this is not a factor intrinsic to either game, but an artifact of the difference in cultures. Despite all of the above, having played chess all my life and Shogi only in the past year or two, I tend to prefer the latter game, and think that it would be more popular in the US if it were properly marketed. Unfortunately in the USA there are not enough opponents to play with, especially in smaller and medium-sized cities, and no events in which one can win class prizes (as with chess), which reward one for improving repidly. On the other hand, it doesn't cost very much to enter a Shogi tournament and get a rating. ________________________________________________________________ Howard K. Wachtel University of Illinois at Chicago Howard.Wachtel uic edu or U13054 UICVM CC UIC EDU