From: Stephen J Lamb <SJL <at> DEV <dot> ALS <dot> CO <dot> UK>
Date: 8 jul 1997
Subject: Re: European Style of playing shogi

> 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.


I've heard the expression "european style of playing shogi", or
something similar, many times in the past but I think this, whatever it
is, is largely a myth.


I mean this in the sense that I don't think it is possible to classify
the majority of european shogi players as being particularly strong or
weak in certain elements of the game, as we are all individuals and have
individual strengths and weaknesses.


Sure, many shogi novices who also play chess may initially display
some weaknesses in their game, such as placing too much importance on
material at the cost of speed of attack, but I think most novices will
quickly lose weaknesses such as these as they gain a little experience
with the game.


Also, I suppose people from the same club may share a similar style, as
they would frequently play each other and may start to "imitate"
certain styles of play they frequently come into contact with.  I
suppose it is even possible that this could be extended to a country-
wide basis in europe, with styles of play being dependent on the
written shogi-material that a country's shogi association produces
(providing this is all the material a person has to go on in order to
learn shogi).  But this is stretching logic pretty thin, and I can't
imagine it would be possible to extend this argument to the whole of
europe.


> 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.


Over here in europe many tournaments use 1 hour and 30 seconds byomomi
per player in games and I agree with Eric, and you, about allowing more
time for byoyomi.  A lot of games I've played in or watched are lost
because a player blunders in byoyomi, and this can be very frustrating
for the player involved.  In fact, I would suggest erring on the side
of caution and would suggest allowing 1 minute byoyomi per player (as
you do), rather than 40 seconds (as Eric does).


I do not agree with having less than 1 hour per side normal time though
(at least not for stronger players) since I think it should be the
exception rather than the rule that a game should go into byoyomi.
With a lot of one-hour games going into byoyomi here anyway, I would in
fact like normal time to increase to 75 minutes.


All this IMNHO of course :-).


--Steve Lamb (a 4-dan born and raised in the UK)