From: sean humby gmail com> Date: 28 feb 2007 Subject: Re: A Comparison of Shogi, Chess, Xiangqi ------=_Part_38000_15003018.1172670674878 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline *It is a testament to how dynamic shogi is that there is no "point scale" for the pieces.* This is not an accurate statement. There are several scales given in various books by famous pros. For lance, knight, silver, gold, bishop, and rook (unpromoted), with pawn as 1, Tanigawa gives 5-6-8-9-13-15, while other pros give 3-4-5-6-8-9 (or 10), with other values for promoted pieces. I personally teach 4-5-7-8-11-13, which is a compromise between the above that I think works quite well. What is accurate is that there is much less agreement on the proper scale than there is in chess, and also that it is far more useful in the early stages than later on, when king safety becomes critical. This is an interesting piece of wisdom. I had thought general shogi wisdom was to encourage more fluid thought than assigning static values to pieces. Teaching that a pieces intrinsic value is dependant on a myriad of factors including game stage, king safety, attack potential, and the opponent's possible use for the piece. The values you've listed from various pros seem like they can and should fluctuate. For example I've learned that in the opening a kaku can have a higher value than a hisha for it's ability to weave through the pawn lines. In practice I rarely make that trade but I can certainly see the logic behind dropping a bishop in a sore spot in the enemies defense. Not trying to argue... rather to get some clarity. Is there any more detail regarding these value-systems and how to effectively apply them to any situation? ------=_Part_38000_15003018.1172670674878 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline

It is a testament to how dynamic shogi is that there is no "point scale" for the pieces.

     This is not an accurate statement. There are several scales given in various books by famous pros. For lance, knight, silver, gold, bishop, and rook (unpromoted), with pawn as 1, Tanigawa gives 5-6-8-9-13-15, while other pros give 3-4-5-6-8-9 (or 10), with other values for promoted pieces. I personally teach 4-5-7-8-11-13, which is a compromise between the above that I think works quite well.

     What is accurate is that there is much less agreement on the proper scale than there is in chess, and also that it is far more useful in the early stages than later on, when king safety becomes critical.
 
This is an interesting piece of wisdom. I had thought general shogi wisdom was to encourage more fluid thought than assigning static values to pieces. Teaching that a pieces intrinsic value is dependant on a myriad of factors including game stage, king safety, attack potential, and the opponent's possible use for the piece. The values you've listed from various pros seem like they can and should fluctuate. For example I've learned that in the opening a kaku can have a higher value than a hisha for it's ability to weave through the pawn lines. In practice I rarely make that trade but I can certainly see the logic behind dropping a bishop in a sore spot in the enemies defense.
 
Not trying to argue... rather to get some clarity. Is there any more detail regarding these value-systems and how to effectively apply them to any situation?
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