Shogi Information

Edited by Kentaro Kayama and Tsuyoshi Yamada
Advised by Hiroyuki Iida

Introduction

Shogi has the same origin as chess, but it has developed uniquely in Japan.
There are more than ten million Shogi players in Japan, and there is a professional association. Moreover, popularization around the world is done vigorously. International matches are also often held.
The most important difference between Shogi and Chess is reuse of captured pieces. Because of it, branching factor and move average are larger, and search space is bigger than Chess.
Many ideas of search in Chess programs can be used in Shogi program, but Shogi specific technique is also necessary, of course.
Current level of computer Shogi is almost equivalent to high level of amateur and near the professional. (About 700 or 800 point in rating between strongest human and strongest computer Shogi)
Shogi programs are being developed to win against a top human player by 2010.

Tsume-Shogi is about mating problems in Shogi. Information for computer Tsume-Shogi will be appearing soon.

Rules of the Game

Please see this page: www.ricoh.co.jp/SHOGI/rules/erules.html

Past Achievements

Articles: There are some articles for computer Shogi in ICGA Journal.
Books: Please see www.computer-shogi.org/reference_e.html (all books for computer Shogi are written in Japanese)

Events

computer-computer match

The World Computer Shogi Championship is held in Japan every year. Please see Comupter Shogi Association (CSA) Web Cite for more information.
- The 20th World Computer Shogi Championship will be held as follows:
  - Dates: May 2-4, 2010
  - Venue: The University of Electro-Communications (Tokyo, Japan)
  - Registration Deadline: January 31, 2010
  - Application: Access the following URI to register your ID https://www.computer-shogi.org/cgi-bin/wcsc20/apply-e.cgi and then proceed with the application.
  For more information please see: www.computer-shogi.org/wcsc20/index_e.html.

Academic Activities

The Game Programming Workshop 2002 (GPW '02) in Japan on November 15-17, 2002 presents some 20 papers including computer Shogi topic. See the past event.
The Game Informatics research group was founded under the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), and covers the computer-shogi research.

Related Associations

Game-playing Servers

Shogi Club 24

Key People and Programs

Yasushi Tanase (IS Shogi)
Hiroshi Yamashita (YSS)
Jeff Rollason (Shotest)
Reijer Grimbergen (SPEAR)
for other programmer, please see CSA web site.

Please report broken links, or suggestions for shogi-related links to: Kentaro Kayama