From: Leung Kai Wan HKUSUA HKU HK> Date: 8 jul 1997 Subject: European Style of playing shogi Hello, all. > This was the first real opportunity for > me to see that the european style of playing shogi is different of the > japanese style. > Mr. Eric Cleymol stated his shogi experience in Japan. European style of playing shogi was mentioned several times. May I ask for more detail about this? Does it mean playing shogi in a manner like European chess? Personally I play both Chinese chess (xiangqi) and shogi oftenly but know little about chess. A few personal opinions are as follows. > Playing in such a tournament is a great experience, even if you are > eliminated in the first stage of the tournament. A first participation > shows you the style of the players who play more patiently than in > Europe, the games are a bit longer in the number of moves and in the > duration too. Even if in Europe games are usually played in 1 hour for > each player and only 40 minutes in the amateur Ryu-O sen. Many european > games are finished before the byoyomi. If we want to win against such > strong players, we need to practice more the byoyomi. Why about playing > some club games in 40 seconds of byoyomi only ? > Most shogi pieces are short-ranged. This means developing pieces, especially gold and silver, on board takes more moves. But fighting from drops can be very severe. Waiting and defensive moves to get rid of counterattacks from drops are understandable. However, drops are impossible in chess and chess players never care about it. Maybe this is the reason shogi fans with chess background prefer early fightings while weigh counterattack drops less heavily and result in shorter games. In Hong Kong, most games are limited at 20 minutes and 1 minute byoyomi each side. Byoyomi takes place in almost every game. Endings are excitings and skilful. It deserves a trial. > Toshio gave me some advices > which can be useful for every player. the two main advices are : 1, > writing down the moves only after the game and 2, thinking globally, > looking at the whole board, not to make any loose piece. If one of your > pieces is out of the game, how can you beat a stronger opponent with a > piece less in the attack ? > Whole board sense has been a cruical topic in go (the game of surrounding stones). Probably it is due to the large board size of 19x19. Pieces in chess can move to longer distance where the board is smaller. Difference between local and global fighting in chess seems smaller than in shogi. This may be the reason this concept is seldom discussed or considered in shogi-l here. Someone told me there is a goal in chess openings to get control of the centre so that pieces can move efficiently toward anywhere one prefer. I think this consideration shares the same essence with whole board sense. The above are my own thinking about Japanese shogi style versus chess-like shogi style. Critism and comments are more than welcome. Best regards, Kai Wan Leung Hong Kong leungkw hkusua hku hk