In an effort to find a place where I can replay a handicapped shogi game (yes, it’s this one), I stumbled upon a very new website that seems to be a lichess spinoff for shogi. From what I can see it launched in September this year, and is still more or less in beta, but it looks very promising, so I thought I’d share it here.
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From 1 to NASA, with 3 being right about “IKEA directions Google translated”, how difficult is it to learn shogi?
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If you know chess, you just have to learn the movement of a few new pieces, and the fact that captured pieces can be placed back to fight for your side. There’s some special rules of not having two pawns in the same row, and like chess, pieces can promote when they reach the enemy line (which is the last three lines of the board in shogi, instead of the single last line in chess).
It’s a very interesting variant (the most interesting of the chess variants that I know of). Most pieces move pretty slow, only a single space per move, with the exception of one rook and one bishop (which both can promote to almost-queens), and the knight and lance pieces, (which can only move forward), so it’s a little less frantic than chess, but not as slow as Go.
The hardest part will probably be remembering which symbol stands for which piece, if you’re unfamiliar with kanji.
I totally recommend checking it out.
Looks like there’s a tutorial available on that site as well!
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… And if you don’t? (that preconception that every OGS member is a lichess veteran… tsk tsk tsk 
).
Oh. Oh-oh. 
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I’m not, I’m terrible at chess
If you don’t know chess, you might have a little harder time understanding the strategy, but all the more to discover, right?
It looks like they have a tile set with pictograms instead of kanji as well 
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I wonder if y’all will forgive me if I end up liking shogi better than Go. 
This is pretty cool.
I don’t intent to get into shogi, but I really like lichess for its clean design and open-source philosophy (there may or may not be a Go server that follows a similar pattern), so thanks for sharing. 
I have an account there, hit me up for a game sometime~
Note: I have very little idea how to play…
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How did both you and mekriff find this site and create an account on the same day I did?
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Plot twist: It’s not in the hamburger menu on the left, it’s in the search icon on the top right.
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I play chess and I couldn’t manage shogi.
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I’d love to learn shogi and this is the main reason that i want to and also the main thing stopping me. I’ve learned a very small amount of Japanese and even less kanji and find both fascinating but feel it would be a disproportionate struggle even just to learn the pieces…
I’d love to learn shogi and this is the main reason that i want to and also the main thing stopping me. I’ve learned a very small amount of Japanese and even less kanji and find both fascinating but feel it would be a disproportionate struggle even just to learn the pieces…
From what I’ve seen, lishogi allows you to use pieces with pictures instead of kanji.
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I mean shogi is basically chess, so that’s where the original comparison came from…
The shogi discords : D
As long as you don’t leave us 
, it will be okay. 
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Shogi is a great game to play casually. I really enjoy being a permanent beginner at it, which is good because it would be hard to improve at both it and Go at the same time.
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I had a Shogi app with single Kanji on the stones. After some matches against a bot you’ll see which Kanji move which way.
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Nice find! I am a big fan of Shogi, which I think is better than chess for the following reasons:
- Draws are very rare.
- The first move advantage is minimal.
It is interesting that joseki and certain openings (static / ranging rook castles) have developed in shogi. The game seems to have been analyzed to death in Japan, like Igo.
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