Japanese Chess: The Game of Shogi

My son reading it now and telling me far too many 'did you know mom' impossible to remember facts. He seems very interested

The first half of the book is fantastic at explaining the pieces, rules and basic strategy. The second half is examples of advanced strategies where you need to set the board out and walk through step by step without really understanding the rationale for each side's moves. A link to an app to play against an AI (using the same anglesized pieces) would be ace. The only apps I've found are fully japanese. Not fluent

A very good book with a lot of information for a newcomer to shogi also the book has good drawings p baker cheshire

I've been interested in Shogi since about 1968, and have a small library of Shogi books in English (consisting of most of the books published in English over the last 30 years) so I'm comparing this book with other material on my bookshelf. I'm submitting this review for the paper version of the book. I presume the Kindle version is the same as the paper version. This appears to be a reprint and retitling of the original 1966 "Shogi: Japans Game of Strategy" (Also available for Kindle). This edition suffers from the same major shortcoming as the original, namely that the kanji on the pieces in the diagrams are obscured by Western style chess piece outlines, and also by identifying letters. This is presented as a virtue in the book - it isn't - it makes the diagrams very difficult to interpret! Bluntly, the diagrams in this book are dreadful! The kanji used to identify the pieces in Japan are not that difficult to learn, and any serious aspiring Shogi player will learn the Japanese forms of the pieces without difficulty. In this book, even the few instances where kanji are presented in their proper form are bodged - on page 24, the kanji for the Lance is presented as that for a Pawn! The system of notation used to record moves and game scores is pretty clumsy, and although it is related to the Japanese system of notation described in an Appendix, it does not easily correspond with the Japanese system (I have a Japanese text in front of me, and although it can be compared it's hard work!). There were also factual mistakes in the original. I haven't checked to see if they are repeated in this edition. [They are! There are mistakes in the rules, and also some very doubtful 'strategic' advice'. I should have updated this review some time ago - I probably wouldn't have bothered, but in another forum, the copyright owners of this book (some ramshackle Buddhist outfit in the U.K.) tried to bullshit me about the author being a 'respected master' and that sort of crap. They also made claims about the book which were demonstrably false(!), so now they can take the consequences. I pointed out to them in some detail the errors in the book, after which they went strangely quiet. Do NOT patronise me pal!] The claims in the accompanying blurb that "This is the bible of shogi", and "is the ultimate book on shogi for beginners and experienced players alike." have no justification (frankly, such claims are laughable). In fact, there are far better introductory books in English on Shogi, specifically "Shogi for Beginners", by John Fairbairn and "The Art of Shogi" by Tony Hosking - both of these are pretty much essential reading for any English speaking Shogi player. Neither of these books are available for Kindle unfortunately, though both are still in print (some of Fairbairns Go material is available for the Kindle). So, one star only, I'm afraid, mostly because of the historical interest of this book. Unfortunately there is no good material on Shogi available for the Kindle. Maybe it's time I tried to write something myself... 7 years later - I did! Search for 'Eric Cheymol's Shogi Page' and then look for 'Introduction to Shogi', a free 200+ page introduction in PDF format.

Very new to shogi, and while this book didn't teach me everything I'd like to know it did set a good foundation, helping me learn some basic openings and strategies, and teaching me how to read a Japanese score properly so I have more resources to choose from afterwards. The author is a 4th dan at the time of writing it, and at the end of the book Yasuharu Oyama (who is a Shogi Meijin or Champion) put an afterward endorsing the book, so I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if you are interested in Shogi.

Buenas explicaciones. Ideal para aprender.

Ein handlicher knapp aber übersichtlich gehaltener Einführungskurs für Einsteiger, der Lust auf das Spiel macht, ohne zu überfordern. Auch der Umstand, dass er in Englisch ist, sollte nicht abschrecken, denn er liest sich leicht und ist zusätzlich mit übersichtlichen Grafiken bebildert. Vertiefende Literatur wäre eine gute Ergänzung, habe ich aber noch keine (ausser auf Japanisch) gefunden.

Good introduction to how the game is played.

Ottimo libro, contiene uone informazioni per chi si avvicina la prima volta allo shogi ed anche per chi già ci gioca da tempo. Unico difetto: non esiste ancora una copia in italiano, quindi come (ancora) molte cose inerenti al giappone per noi italiani rimane necessario armarci di buona pazienza ed una discreta conoscenza dell'inglese