Importance of defending in Double Wing Attack

Hey all. I just encountered this tonight and it reminded me that it is a very easy trap to fall for as a beginner, so I want to discuss why it's important to build a proper defense when going for a Double Wing Attack.

In Double Wing Attack, both players push their rook file pawns into the opponent's bishop's head for the purpose of trading pawns in order to have one pawn in hand. The standard moves are as follows:

Double Wing Attack
1. P-2f 2. P-8d
3. P-2e 4. P-8e (diagram)
5. G-7h 6. G-3c
7. P-2d 8. Px2d
9. Rx2d 10. P*2c
11. R-2f

However, a beginner who is playing black that hasn't studied these moves might think that his opponent's bishop's head is completely unguarded, so instead of playing G-7h, he'll go straight for P-2d. This will create the perfect situation for white's most basic trap.



Play has resumed as follows:

5. P-2d 6. Px2d
7. Rx2d 8. P-8f
9. Px8f

To a beginner this might look like a good situation for black. He might be thinking play will go 10. Rx8f 11. P*8g, but...





White is actually going to play 10. P*8g. Suddenly, black's bishop is undefended, and white has the initiative. Play will typically resume as follows:

11. P*3c 12. Px8h+
13. Px3b+

But if black leaves himself undefended yet again...







... 14. B*3e

Due to black's greed (or panic), he is now put in a horrible position: his rook and 5g pawn are forked. Either he can save his rook and let white's bishop promote, or he can defend the 5g pawn and let white get away with having 3 major pieces right in the opening. Either way, black is put in a bad position, and no matter what he does, his position will only get worse and worse as the game goes on.




drisato (1168) vs. hirohiigo (1240): This is a game I just played tonight in which my opponent fell for this trap. I didn't beat him up as much as I could have since I don't like bullying players weaker than me, but it's a good real-life example of this situation.

Hidetchi has a great video on Double Wing Attack:

Shogi in the Limelight + Checkmate problems

The other day I was looking through Takodori-san's blog and I found a fascinating series of articles on the history of shogi. It's called Shogi in the Limelight and it was posted in the Japan Foundation's Newsletter VOL.XXVI/NOS.5-6 in April 1999. These articles are very good and they will definitely give you a good sense of what shogi is.

I have also decided to post ten checkmate that are fairly easy and are very good for beginners.

One Move to Mate

Three Moves to Mate

The answers will be posted in the comment section of this post.

The beauty of Shogi pieces

I read today that shogi pieces are specially cut so that one player's pieces would make a circle if you put them together side-by-side. I decided to see if this was the case:

I was happy to see that even my cheap, factory-made pieces fit together like this. They're very beautiful even when not playing the game.

Saikyou Shogi Bonanza for English Speakers

Like I mentioned in my last post, I want to make a guide for English-speakers who are interested in Saikyou Shogi Bonanza. Anyone with a PSP who is interested in shogi should definitely pick up the game. You can buy it here.

I am only going to post images where I have translated the menus, so that you can see what is what. When you play the game you will be able to compare it to my graphics to navigate. If you would like me to upload some raw, Japanese graphics of the game, send me a message on Twitter or IM me at T3h HT (AIM) or edelas2@gmail.com (MSN). I do not often check my email.

The first thing you will need to note is that with this game, as well as most (if not all?) Japanese PSP games, O is the accept button and X is the cancel button. Anyway, this is the main menu that you will see after beginning a new game. The options go from right to left in Japanese vertical style. The options are Computer Play, Network Play, Checkmate Problems (Tsume Shogi), Joseki, Game Record, Shogi Rules, and System Settings. Game Record will let you see how many times you've won or lost against the computer and how many moves you made each game. I haven't been able to tell if you're able to check the notation of past games. I'm not sure of Network Play means over the internet or over a local network. I can't connect to anything so I don't know what to do with that.



If you want to use one-character pieces, go to System Settings and go down to this option, and choose the second setting. I don't feel like this menu is important to translate; if you want to mess around with the settings they're not that difficult to figure out.



This is the screen you will see when you choose Computer Play. I'm sorry I forgot to translate the Thinking Time, it should be 1 minute and 5 occurences. I'm not sure what that means, sorry. ^^; The handicap options are No Handicap, Lance Handicap, Bishop Handicap, Rook Handicap, Rook+Lance Handicap, Two Piece Handicap, Four Piece Handicap, and Six Piece Handicap. The options for Black Player are Pawn Toss, Player, and Computer. Byoyomi is the amount of time you can use per move after you've run out of time, and it refreshes back to its original number after every move. For example, in a 30 minute game, after you've used your 30 minutes of time, each move you make must be 30 seconds if you are playing with a 30 second byoyomi.



This is the game menu. Even though I translated the notation, it will show up in Japanese style (for example, those moves are listed as 1．七六歩　2．三四歩 in the game). I forgot to translate the menus under Byoyomi, but it's "Thoughts Remaining" or something to that effect. Once again I don't know what that means, sorry. The ranks are also listed in kanji rather than letters like this (一 through 九). The words in the black bars are the names of the players.

These are the menus in the game mode. "Next Move" will suggest what your next move should be.

This is the Checkmate Problems menu. It's very self explanatory. The kanji in the boxes is the number of the problem, which appears in the black box on the left. The Japanese below the problem number just tells you how many moves to checkmate it is.

This is the joseki menu. As you can see they have a good variety of opening josekis, so be sure to check them out and pick a favorite.

And that's it for this English-speaker's guide to Saikyou Shogi Bonanza. With this information, you will be able to enjoy this game to a good extent. If you buy it and use this guide to play it, please be sure to comment on this blog or message me to let me know, I'll really appreciate it.

A huge thanks to Hans Geuns' Basic Shogi Vocabulary for translations of most of the openings and to my friends Trent, Hawkeye, and crazysjd89 for various small translations within the menus.

Saikyou Shogi Bonanza for PSP

So today I got a copy of Saikyou Shogi Bonanza for the Playstation Portable. I had already played AI Shogi for PSP and also Minna no Shogi for Gameboy Advance, so I was excited to see what it was like.

Firstly, Minna no Shogi is an excellent game. If you have the chance to get it, do so. Even for a player who doesn't speak Japanese, the game is easy to navigate and has a good selection of difficulty levels as well as 150 good checkmate problems. It also features a cute minigame of Rounding Shogi, which was described by Hidetchi in his video Non-Tactical Games Played with Shogi Instruments.

AI Shogi was a bit disappointing. From what I could tell, all it featured was an explanation of Shogi's rules and a bland game mode. The game mode had multiple difficulties, but I felt that sometimes it moved a bit too fast, especially when the computer and I make a rapid series of moves, and it takes some time for the game's notater to catch up to the current move. On the whole it's not a bad game, it's just not a very good one.

Saikyou Shogi Bonanza, however, is a very good shogi game for PSP. It is made by Success, the same company that made Minna no Shogi, so I had high expectations. Luckily, those expectations were met. The first and most important thing is, of course, that it has a good AI system to play against. It's challenging and I enjoy playing against it when I don't have a person to play against. My favorite part of the game system (it also appears in other parts of the game) is that it lists the whole notation for the game on the lefthand side

Like Minna no Shogi, Saikyou Shogi Bonanza also has many checkmate problems. Although it has less problems than Minna no Shogi does (it has 100), it has more challenging problems. Minna no Shogi featured 150 problems, divided into fifty 1-move-to-mate problems, fifty 3-move problems, and fifty 5-move problems. Bonanza is separated into ten 1-move problems, ten 3-move problems, twenty 5-move problems, twenty 7-move problems, twenty 9-move problems, and twenty 11-move problems. Much more advanced than Minna no Shogi! It will definitely help someone read out long mating lines. My only complaint about Bonanza is that, unlike Minna no Shogi, when you make a wrong move in a mate problem, it simply tells you that you failed and asks if you want to try again. Minna no Shogi had an excellent system where it showed you why your move failed. However, it is still excellent.

Another fantastic part of Saikyou Shogi Bonanza is that it features josekis for various openings. It has commentaries on the openings, but I can't read them very well since I can't read much Japanese. Even without the commentaries, though, it is nice to see various openings played out, and it is nice for both learning and refreshing one's memory about shogi strategy. The openings it discusses are Climbing Silver, Static Rook Anaguma, Yagura Opening, Tateishi's Fourth File Rook, Reclining Silver, Side Pawn Picker, Central Rook, Double Anaguma, Fourth File Rook, and Twisting Rook. This is a very good number of openings to study, especially for beginners.

The best part is that PSP doesn't have region lock-outs, so you can play games from any part of the world on your PSP. If you're interested in playing this game, you can buy it from Play-Asia.

I was going to include an English-speaker's guide to navigating through the menus, but this post is getting too long so I'll end it here. Thanks for reading!

Habu has won the Meijinsen

Mainichi Daily News article

Yesterday was the second half of the 7th and final game of the Meijinsen between Yoshiharu Habu and Masataka Goda. At the beginning of the game, the score was 3-3, and Habu defeated Goda impressively yesterday, defending the Meijin title for another year.

You can replay the game here.

In addition, I also recommend reading Takodori-san's commentaries from his Twitter regarding the game. You can find duplicates of his Twitter entries on his blog:

Day 1
Day 2

Why is it important to castle?

Hey everyone, today I thought I'd make an update to point out the most basic defensive strategy so that beginners can get a grasp of it. I'll explain it using examples of my own games that I've played in the past week. The topic is, of course, castles.

Castles are formations of pieces that surround and defend your king. Unlike chess, where the only "castle" is putting your rook in front of your king, Shogi castles are deliberately designed to ward off the opponent's attacks and keep your king as far away from the battlefield as possible. There are many types of castles and many variations of every kind of castle, but here are the three most common castles:

Yagura Castle

Yagura Castle is one of the most popular kinds of castles, although it takes some time to make. It is used when the opponent is playing Static Rook (when a player keeps his or her rook on its opening file in the opening). Its strength is that it heavily defends the front of the king, which is where a Static Rook player will be opening fire. Often times you will see two players in Yagura Castle at the same time, as they are castled used by Static Rook players. Its weaknesses are the left side and the bottom.

Mino Castle

Mino Castle is another popular castle, especially among beginners, especially because it is one of the easiest castles to make. Mino Castle is used by Ranging Rook (when a player moves his or her rook in the opening) players, typically against Static Rook players, because it heavily defends the left side. Its weakness is the silver general's head, 3g. Often times the rightmost pawn will also be pushed, to give an escape route to the king.

Anaguma Castle

Anaguma Castle is a fairly popular castle among beginners because it is one of the hardest castles to break in shogi. It defends decently from the front and heavily from the side. The biggest problem with Anaguma is that if your opponent manages to break your castle, you will be checkmated in a few turns because your king has no escape route.


Now that I've given a quick introduction to castles, I'd like to go into their uses in-game. A few months ago when I was very new at shogi, I was of the mentality that, "Well if I can make a big enough attack, they won't have time to attack me, so I don't need to build a castle." This mentality worked against some of my friends and some other beginners in PlayOK, but as I started getting better and playing against better players, I realized I was very, very wrong. It's always important to protect your king in one way or another. There are two shogi proverbs that apply to castling: "Avoid a sitting king," and "Protect your king with three generals, etc."

Here's an example of one of my games that I just played tonight where I had a solid defense while my opponent didn't:

hirohiigo (black) vs. mawelikeke (white)

I knew for sure that I was going to win this game at move 36. S-2f. He made a huge error in making that move, and it allowed me to play 37. Rx2f. He hurried the game along by playing 39. B-2e to attack my rook. Since I could skip going after his bishop, I could run straight into his camp and promote. With a dragon and 2 generals in hand in that kind of situation, I don't think it's possible to lose.

Mawelikeke could have extended the game even farther, but by playing 42. R-5a, he put himself in a Mate In 2 situation, and he could not block 43. +R-4c. 44. K-3a 45. R*3b Gold on the Head checkmate. Mawelikeke was obviously new to the game, so I don't blame him for not knowing any castles. But my next example is against a more skillful opponent:

ryoku (black) vs. hirohiigo (white)

Ryoku showed his aggressive intentions right away by opening with a one move loss bishop exchange and quickly moving into a third file rook strategy. His attacks were coming so fast that I was having trouble keeping up with him - it was like he had his attack planned out before the game even began. I was panicking early into the game, but his first major blunder followed my bishop promotion at 16. Bx6g+, in which his reaction was 17. Px7c+. I don't understand why anyone would continue their attack with a major piece in their camp. Whatever the case, he traded a rook and a pawn for a bishop and a pawn.

But even after that his attacks were coming in strong. The only thing I could do to save myself from 23. R*7a was R*6a to force a rook trade. It kept going on like that until I managed to kick his horse off of its diagonal with 42. B*7b. As soon as his horse moved, I began preparing for my attack with 44. R*7d. He delayed my attack slightly with his lance and knight drop, but the moment I was able to make my first check with 54. G*6i, his entire game collapsed and I won. In the end, it was a matter of the player who had the stronger castle survived.

I hope these real examples of the benefit of castles has taught any beginners reading this how important it is to castle your king, or at the very least move him away from 5a (or 5i if you're black) into a more secure position.

More basic shogi posts

I've created a thread on the pieces in Shogi in the Basics forum. You can find it here.

In the Shogi world, it looks like Meijin Yoshiharu Habu, who is probably the best player in Shogi, may lose his Meijin title this year. Masataka Goda 9dan has taken the lead with 3 wins and 2 losses; the Meijin match lasts 7 games. You can find more information on Takodori-san's blog.