The characters inscribed on the reverse sides of the pieces to indicate promotion may be in red ink, and are usually cursive. Silver generals and gold generals are commonly referred to simply as silvers and golds. (higher ranked player or reigning champion)Įnglish speakers sometimes refer to promoted bishops as horses and promoted rooks as dragons, after their Japanese names, and generally use the Japanese term tokin for promoted pawns. The abbreviations are used for game notation and often when referring to the pieces in speech in Japanese.Īnimal character pieces (Cf. On the reverse side of each piece, other than the king and gold general, are one or two other characters, in amateur sets often in a different color (usually red) this side is turned face up during play to indicate that the piece has been promoted.įollowing is a table of the pieces with their Japanese representations and English equivalents.
Several of these names were chosen to correspond to their rough equivalents in international chess, and not as literal translations of the Japanese names.Įach piece has its name written on its surface in the form of two kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), usually in black ink. The pieces from largest (most important) to smallest (least important) are: Pieces face forward (toward the opponent's side) this shows who controls the piece during play. Except for the kings, opposing pieces are undifferentiated by marking or color. Pairs of dots mark the players' promotion zones.Įach player has a set of 20 wedge-shaped pieces of slightly different sizes. The board is nearly always rectangular square boards are uncommon. The rectangles are undifferentiated by marking or color. Two players, Sente 先手 (Black more literally, person with the first move) and Gote 後手 (White person with the second move), play on a board composed of rectangles in a grid of 9 ranks (rows) by 9 files (columns). The board itself is raised for the comfort of players seated on tatami mats (background), and is hollowed underneath to produce a pleasing sound when the pieces are moved. The stands on either side are komadai used to hold captured pieces. The pieces on the far side are turned to show their promoted values. Ī traditional shōgi-ban (shogi board) displaying a set of koma (pieces). David Pritchard compares this rule to the practice of 16th century mercenaries switching loyalties when captured.
Shogi was the earliest chess variant to allow captured pieces to be returned to the board by the capturing player. Shogi in its present form was played as early as the 16th century, while a direct ancestor without the drop rule was recorded from 1210 in a historical document Nichūreki, which is an edited copy of Shōchūreki and Kaichūreki from the late Heian period (c. The earliest predecessor of the game, chaturanga, originated in India in the 6th century. Shōgi means general's ( shō 将) board game ( gi 棋). Shogi ( 将棋, shōgi) ( / ˈ ʃ oʊ ɡ iː/, Japanese: or ), also known as Japanese chess or the Game of Generals, is a two-player strategy board game in the same family as chess, chaturanga, makruk, shatranj, janggi and xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan.