From: Jens Mueller-Koppe <mkoppe <at> GESCHICHTE <dot> UNI-BREMEN <dot> DE>
Date: 23 jan 1996
Subject: Beginner new on Shogi-L

Hello!

My name is Jens Mueller-Koppe, I am 31 years old, and I am working as
a scientist at the University of Bremen (history department). While I
browsed through the Internet I saw on a chess server that there are
also some pages about Shogi. I looked around and I found a lot of
interesting thing to look on!

I am not a Shogi player right now, but someone how is just starting
to learn this game. I played Chess in a club for about 12 years (not
very good, around 1600-1700 ELO) and was interested in learning and
playing Go since 1984. But my first steps to go was the last, because
I tried to concentrate myself on my studies at that time.
In that time I came to know something about Shogi and looked around
for Material and books. And - after several month I found a book
called "Shogi for beginners" (I think you know it) and a little
magnetic Shogi set (boaring!). And my brother copied me a Shogi
Computer program (Shogi.exe).
But after the first weeks I gave up to learn this game for several
reasons. First, because I never found someone who knows to play! And
second, because I was frustrated while I did not understand quite a
lot of things in a annoteted "Game for beginners" (Chapter 8) in the
Book.
Nevertheless I had the feeling that Shogi must be a very complicate
and very interesting game, especially because of the possibillity of
promoting and dropping pieces.
Well, ...

And know I saw the pages at the Internet, remembering my "Shogi
romance" serveral yaers ago. My first Thought was: Searching for the
book, the Shogi set and the Computer programm. I found the book but
(after serveral times I moved from appartment to appartment the last
yaers) I did not found the Shogi set. The Computer program was also
gone, because the only disk (5,25") I had was not working any more,
...

I tried to download a new program, but the shogi.zip/shogi.exe seems
to work not on my computer (486, 8 MB RAM, WINDOWS 3.11) - the
Computer breaks down when I try to start it. xshogi-1 causes the
computer to "say": Not enough place in your RAM!

The second thing I thought and the reason because I subscribed to
this list is that I see now a chance really to meet some living Shogi
players. Really be able to join something like an internatinal Shogi
scene. I think I would like that and I think that will motivate me to
go the first steps in learning the secrets of this game!
Playing with a computer, playing on a server, playing per e-mail and
may be meeting some Shogi players later must be possible, I thought
and here I am, ...

I hope you are not boared and thick of all the private stuff I wrote.
And I hope somebody here can help me with some questions.

1) Were can I buy a Shogi set, for instance here in Germany (not too
expensive)?
2) How can I make any of that Shogi Computer programs work on my
computer?
3) Will it be the right way to learn Shogi to work myself through the
book "Shogi for Beginners"?
4) Is it possible to play the game when you just realized the rules?
5) Am I at the right place here with my questions? (I do not know if
this is normally the meeting point of players who are through with
the first steps, playing Shogi much better then a beginner)

Best greetings and best wishes to all of you,

Jens Mueller-Koppe