From: Chiaki Ito MAIL COM> Date: 19 jan 2001 Subject: Shogi population The total number of members of Shogi Club 24 (http://www.shogidojo.com/eng/engindex.htm) now exceeded 36,000. This Internet Shogi site was opened less than 3 years ago. Of that number, 27,000 members actually played at least a game there and 16,000 played at least a game this month. The largest number of members logged in at one time is 1746, recorded 5 days ago. The top page site received almost 3 million hits so far. All the numbers above are growing consistently and these numbers are actually very good even in comparison to the Internet chess site, which, of course, has many times larger market than that of Shogi. It is assumed that about 2 percent of the players are female players, about 3-5 percent are accesses from overseas, and about 20-30 pros play there. It has been said that the total number of Shogi population has been shrinking recently due to the decrease in the number of young people who play Shogi. We hear that a lot of clubs have been closed down in the last 10 years and even the ones which survive today are facing financial difficulties. However, given the fact that more and more people started playing Shogi on the Internet, and also some Shogi softwares are sold relatively well, I think the total size of Shogi population is not getting smaller. What do you all think? Chiaki Ito Bangkok, Thailand