From: "Randal J. Andrews" IX NETCOM COM> Date: 1 may 1996 Subject: Re: SHOGI HOMEPAGE'S USE OF JAPANESE CRITIZED >several Japanese competitors, who use chess terms on their shogi >homepages, say Sano is only creating confusion. At least, Mr. Sano has published a book on shogi in English. His book is the first book on shogi in English since 1983! It is easy to criticize his approach, but a lot more difficult to publish a book. His Japanese critics may succeed in discouraging him so much that it will be 12 more years for another English book to be published. I hope he is not discouraged, but it has been several months since I last heard from him. I think there are more than 1000 shogi fans in the West, but if the Japanese were serious about spreading the game, there would be a shogi server on the internet similar to the dozens of chess servers. FICS is very good and the code is available to modify free of charge. Why the Japanese don't sponsor a shogi server is a mystery to me. Forget the Western player, a shogi server would spread the game in Japan, too.