From: Leslie Kish & Joshua Krekeler <joshxles <at> ONE <dot> NET>
Date: 18 jun 1999
Subject: Re: Promoting shogi

I think the best potential source for shogi is chess players, if you can get
them to try the game.  Maybe we need on online tournament where people play
both chess and shogi, (the shogi with handicap, the chess without).

Ben

        Ben, I'm really glad to read that on Shogi-L!  The members of the
        Ohio Shogi Club are, as a whole, deeply involved with three of the
        four major chess clubs in Cincinnati.  Since we're around chess
        players so often, we've put a lot of thought into getting them
        interested in learning shogi and becoming shogi players too.
        They're our primary market, and we try to familiarize them with
        shogi by continually having shogi boards out and enjoying our
        games.  We're by far the loudest bunch in any room full of chess
        players.

        We've also tried to make the game seem approachable and easy
        for a chess player to learn by using international sets and
        emphasizing the similarity between shogi and bughouse (four-
        player chess played on two boards with drops).  In addition, Doug
        Dysart made a shogi set with cylindrical pieces proportioned like
        chess pieces, and several of our members can testify that shogi
        has helped them play better chess.

        The truth is that getting chess players to learn shogi and play
        more than a few games has been a slow process.  All we can
        do is demonstrate how much we love it -- whether a new player
        likes it enough to stick with it is always a question of individual
        temperament.    We're not going anywhere, though, so since
        we're on the Cincinnati chess scene to stay, I'd like to hear
        other subscribers' positive or negative experiences with
        teaching shogi to chess players.  Maybe we can learn some
        other means of presentation that also work well at chess clubs.
        As far as the question of promoting shogi at clubs vs. on the
        internet, I believe that the more people learn about shogi by
        any means, the better.

        Josh Krekeler
        Ohio Shogi Club