A Shogi Champion Turns to Chess 138
FFriedel writes "Michael Jordan tried it with baseball, and it, like, didn't work out too well for him. But what about a professional Shogi champion switching to chess? Yoshiharu Habu, one of the most gifted players in the history of the ancient Japanese game, has taken a casual interest in chess - and already reached IM strength. He is currently playing in a tournament in Paris, where chess grandmaster Joel Lautier interviewed him." Shogi is a very odd game if you're used to chess. Most of the pieces have biases toward forward motion, and when you capture an enemy piece, you can bring it back into play for your side.
Re:Shogi is ... (Score:1)
Re:Shogi is ... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Thanks for the link, that explained a lot. I'll be looking for the moron that moderated you redundant in metamod.
A Shogi champion turns to chess (Score:1, Informative)
Michael Jordan tried it with baseball - it, like, didn't work out. But what about a professional Shogi champion switching to chess? Yoshiharu Habu, one of the most gifted players in the history of the ancient Japanese game, has taken a casual interest in chess - and already reached IM strength. He is currently playing in a tournament in Paris, where Joel Lautier interviewed him. More
Yoshiharu HABU, the Shogi champion
at the NAO CHESS CLUB from Monday 13th until Tuesday 21st of May 2002 in Paris
Yoshiharu HABU, the undisputed champion of Shogi (a complex game which is the Japanese equivalent of chess), is a top celebrity in Japan. He has been invited by the prestigious NAO Chess Club in Paris to participate in the second international tournament held at the club.
This unusual event aims to achieve two goals: introduce the fascinating game of Shogi to a larger Western audience and likewise enhance chess's popularity in Japan, where every move of their national champion Habu will be scrutinised by countless fans.
Ever since he joined the Professional School of Shogi at the age of twelve, Mr Habu, who is now 31 years old, has been known as the one of the most gifted player in the history of this ancient game. He is the only player to have ever won the seven most prestigious titles successively and he has an outstanding record of 74% of victories over the entire span of his career.
Since 1995, he has taken a keen interest in chess, and notwithstanding the little time he has had to study our game, he has already scored an International Master norm. This took place in what was only his second official tournament, the open of St Quentin (France) in April 2001.
The tournament at the NAO Chess Club is being held every day from the 13th until the 21st of May 2002, with rounds starting at 2.00 pm and ending at 8.00 pm. It is a round-robin of category IV (average rating 2336). Let's see if Mr Habu can reach the magical score of six points out of nine, which would yield him his second IM norm!
Other participants in this event will include the legendary Grandmaster Mark Taimanov and the 12-year old prodigy from France Edouard Bonnet.
After the tournament, on the 22nd of May, Mr Habu will give a simultaneous display of Shogi on ten boards, at the Japanese Embassy in Paris.
All the information on this event is available in French on the website of the NAO Chess Club at www.nao-cc.com . There will be live coverage of the games together with daily reports, photos, interviews and much more.
In organising this unique contest, the NAO Chess Club wishes not only to strengthen the cultural ties between Japan and France, but also to bring together two magnificent games for the benefit of both.
Organisation: NAO Chess Club - Phone: +33-1-40727690. Email: nao-cc@wanadoo.fr
INTERVIEW WITH YOSHIHARU HABU
This interview was conducted by GM Joel Lautier, with the kind assistance of Mariko Sato for the translation, on the 15th of May 2002 at the NAO Chess Club in Paris.
Joel Lautier: When and how did you learn to play chess?
Yoshiharu Habu: About ten years ago, I bought a book on chess and learned the game on my own. It was a Shogi player, Mr Murooka [the same person who first introduced me to Shogi! - JL], himself a passionate chessplayer, who aroused my interest in this game. And then six years ago, I started playing games on a regular basis with Mr Jacques Pineau [Jacques Pineau is a Frenchman who has been living in Japan for many years, with a chess playing strength of approximately 2250. He is also the president of the Asaka Chess Club, located in the suburbs of Tokyo - JL]. We play an average of one or two games a month, and I also read chess magazines to keep up to date. I have learned a bit of theory, but together with Mr Pineau, we have always tried to understand how to think in chess rather than just learn.
Lautier: That is still very little practice for such remarkable progress. What areas of chess do you find most difficult to master?
Habu: I find that the most difficult is to adapt oneself all the time to the changing rhythm of a chess game. A position may demand either fast and energetic action, or much quieter positional play, or something else still. Having to switch from fast play to a slower one and vice versa is the most unsettling for me. In Shogi, the rhythm of a game is much more stable. The opening is usually rather slow, whereas endgames are always a speed race [what Shogi players call "endgames" are in fact mating attacks! There is no such thing as endings in Shogi, since taken pieces can come back into the game at any moment, thus the game does not tend towards simplification - JL]. The rhythm of Shogi never slows down, it only accelerates.
Lautier: Do you find chess more, or less complex than Shogi?
Habu: Before I learned how to play chess, I thought the two games had to be very similar. I think now that they are very different. In chess, it's important to have a good position, whereas in Shogi, it's more important to be the first one who delivers checkmate! I couldn't say which of the two is more complex.
Lautier: Do you have ambitions in chess? Do you plan to become a Grandmaster?
Habu: Most of all, I wish to be able to play chess during my free time, and have the chance to play Grandmasters. If you ask me whether I think I can become a Grandmaster, then I honestly don't know. If I keep progressing and I realise that it is within my reach, then I shall try.
Lautier: Who is your favorite chessplayer?
Habu: Bobby Fischer. My first chess books were about him and his games are the ones I studied most.
Lautier: Do you think chess could become popular in Japan?
Habu: Among developed countries, Japan is perhaps the only one where chess is little known.
Nonetheless, the Japanese like very much this kind of games, they have excellent natural abilities for them. However, there is a great lack of information about chess in Japan. If a tournament with the participation of the best players in the world was organized there, it could have a strong impact on the publicity of chess in my country.
Lautier: Do you think chess and Shogi are sports ?
Habu: Chess is certainly a sport. For Shogi, it is a bit different, since it is part of the Japanese traditional culture, along with the tea ceremony and Ikebana, the Japanese floral art. During the Edo era [from 1603 until 1868 - JL], there were only three families who played Shogi, and the Master of the game was called Meijin. However, this title could only be inherited, and it has only been a century since the title of Meijin is contested in a real competition.
Lautier: The world of chess is very prone to conflicts whereas the Shogi world seems much more united and organised. Have you any advice to give FIDE?
Habu: (Laughs) No, no, I cannot give any advice! But it is much simpler for the small Shogi federation to remain united, as it only comprises 130 professional players. Moreover, these are all players from one country, which avoids many of the political problems within FIDE. The great size of FIDE makes consensus more difficult, all the more since it is partly made of people who are not chess professionals but have other activities. The Shogi Renmei (the Shogi federation) is composed exclusively of professional players, active and retired, who also handle the whole organisation of tournaments and the contracts with the sponsors. It's actually the case in many other federations in Japan, namely in martial arts. A person who has never been a professional in a given field cannot be part of the federation that regulates it [a very healthy principle to meditate ! -JL].
Lautier: How popular is Shogi in Japan?
Habu: Shogi has been very popular in Japan for a long time. Until 30 years ago, the Japanese people used to play in a room that led to the garden, traditionally reserved for this activity. Today, Shogi can be played everywhere! The number of people who know the rules of Shogi can be roughly estimated at ten million, the number of those who play regularly must be around a hundred thousand.
Lautier: Let's talk about women! Do they play Shogi?
Habu: Yes, they also play Shogi. There are two separate professional categories for men and women. There are approximately fifty full-time women professional players (there are 130 among men). In professional competitions among men, only one or two women players can take part. This is only the case since seven or eight years ago, before that women could not participate in them. Over that period of time, these women have played about two hundred games against their male colleagues with a success rate of 30%.
Lautier: Are computers a threat for Shogi ?
Habu: In mating problems, called Tsume Shogi, the computer is already superior to the best players. In normal games, however, the computer is still far from the professional level. Its level can be compared to a 4-dan among amateurs [approximately 2300 strength in chess Elo terms. The first dan among professionals starts after the amateur 6-dan. To get a rough idea, the best Shogi players in the world, including Mr Habu, have a ranking of professional 9-dan - JL].
Lautier: Thank you for answering our questions and good luck!
Further information is available at the
It's like ya know..... (Score:1, Funny)
I think that, like, the submitter, like, of this story like kinda like talks like a 14 year old girl, like.
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:2)
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
mordock: I, like, totally already know that.
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:5, Interesting)
The author is Frederic Friedel, who also happens to be the guy behind much of chessbase.com, I think. He is probably not a native English speaker; he speaks several languages (judging from Google and chessbase research), including German, English, and Spanish. He is also an expert on computer chess. (and a very good chess player, having conversed with Garry Kasparov on things like the Brains of the World puzzle)
This is just an aside. I believe that linguistically speaking, the 'like,' bit was a sly dig at Michael Jordan and US culture, i.e. he used 'valley girl' lingo to express the 'oh well it didn't work out, so what' impression that he may have received from Jordan's failed baseball career. (and contrasted that with the undisputed Shogi grandmaster who has achieved International Master status barely a decade after teaching himself chess by reading a book about it)
Now, much of the linguistic implication outlined above is relatively speculative. But it suggests that he knew what he was talking above, and that it had some 'deeper' meaning.
Besides, making fun of someone who is a fairly high-level chess player and who speaks several languages well enough to converse and report in them, simply because he used some 'funny' phrasing, is kind of silly. Don't you think?
(posting anonymously to preserve my precious karma)
ASBTA
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
Not to mention that we think tonic is wicked pissah!
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
What is your definition of 'very good chess player'? While Mr. Friedel certainly can play decent chess, his name is not in FIDE's rating list (and never have been). I wouldn't consider anyone who hasn't played in real tournament a very good player.
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:1)
The people who have played in tournaments are a subset of the good chess players.
Don't be so closed-minded.
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:2, Informative)
First some clarification: I am a very poor otb (=over the board) chess player, my highest rating ever was about 2000 as a 19-year-old. I speak exactly two languages, English (my first) and German, but both of them proficiently enough to write and publish in. I am a computer chess expert but not a programmer. Garry has been a close friend since 1985.
In my news blurbs on the main ChessBase page [chessbase.com] I try to make every item at least theoretically amusing or interesting to visitors, even if they are not chess players. Quite a daunting task, you must admit.
Initially I wrote "Michael Jordan tried it with baseball - it, er, did not work out." An Italian visitor drew attention to the "typo". So I changed it to "it, well, didn't work out". But then I remembered this incredible turn of phrase used by American kids these days. I had recently discussed the exact meaning and usage with an American colleague, Rudy Chelminsky of Wired et al., who abhors it's current prevalence. Rudy also introduced me to the really crass form: he was like "Never ever use it, Fred!"
So I changed it again. And apparently it worked. Look at the number of posting here dedicated to one word. That's good Fleet Steet technique - get them to look twice. And I learnt a new technical term: valley girl speak. I wondered why the Fullbright students here in Germany never use it. They're like all from New England!
Re:It's like ya know..... (Score:2)
My similar strategy (Score:4, Funny)
Chess equivalent Strategy: When your opponent is distracted and not focusing on the chess board, one must use a 'quick arm flick to the side area, move your captured pieces and put back them back into play'. Alternate strategy, but as effective, is to remove opponent pieces "out" of play.
Subtlety is the key to success.
Important reminder: during gameplay, you are 'physically' at all times one arms length away from opponent's fist.
A perfect fit. (Score:4, Funny)
*ba-dum pish*
(It's a joke. laugh.)
Re:A perfect fit. (Score:2)
It sounds like we're going into right direction already. According to article "in mating problems [...] the computer is already superior to the best players." Need I say more?
Shogi and Go (Score:2, Interesting)
FWIW, shogi is far more fun than chess and more interesting too.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
The great difficulty in programming a computer to play Go arises from the combinatorial complexity of the game. (There are 19x19 points on the board, each of which can be either empty or contain a black or white stone with relatively few invalid positions.)
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:1)
Nit pick: IIRC, the rule is 3 consecutive passes ...
The great difficulty in programming a computer to play Go arises from the combinatorial complexity of the game. (There are 19x19 points on the board, each of which can be either empty or contain a black or white stone with relatively few invalid positions.)
Add to that it is difficult to estimate the score, and hence difficult for a computer to prune the game tree. Hence a brute-force approach (as used by Chess programs) would have to search a much deeper as well as much wider tree of possibilities.
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:1)
Yes, of course. After the first 3 consecutive passes no new situation can possibly occur. (After 2 passes new situations may occur due to a rule that in essence forbids ondoing the other player's previous move.) My bad.
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Therefore the players have to agree that the game is over; the formal method for indicating this is to keep passing. That's what I said.
Players will only pass if they feel they can not improve their score by playing.
A player may, and a computer certainly would, take "not lost yet" to be better than "stop now and add up my (losing) score" and simply refuse to pass. There's (almost?) always something you can play in Go as I recall. If money is at stake, why not?
As such, the endpoint of the game is clearly defined and not as fuzzy as your post suggests.
There is nothing clear about the endpoint of Go. There simply is no rule that states that the game must end at any point. There is an unwritten rule based on human beings' limited patience levels and understanding of the idea of politeness or sportsmanship, but they have no relevence to a machine with infinite patience.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:1)
You can keep filling up your territory and keep invading his, but after a while there will be no more valid moves but passing; GUARANTEED.
I assure you, the finity of Go follows from the rules (Ko! Ko! Ko! Means "infinity" and is prohibited) not from the "limited patience of human beings" or such nonsense.
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:4, Insightful)
I presume you refer to resigning and agreeing to a draw? Go and Shogi are the same as Chess in this respect. In all three, one player may resign when he thinks he has lost. In Chess and Shogi, the players can agree that the game is drawn. (A draw is not normally possible in competition Go because they normally use fractional komi.)
Note: the rules for Go say that unless one player resigns, both players have to agree that the game is over. If one player thinks game is not over, he/she continues making moves ... which the other player may ignore.
In Japanese rules, you lose points by making
moves that your opponent ignores. In Chinese
rules it make no difference.
The difficulty is not for westerners per se. It is more a problem for novices who don't know how to judge that a position is lost. This applies equally to Go, Shogi, Chess and many other complex games with a binary outcome.
I agree that it is difficult for a game playing program to know when to resign or offer a draw. But it usually doesn't matter. Who cares if the computer is "impolite" for not resigning? :-)
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
I think this is good and simply shows that neither Shogi or Go have been taken over by the sort of anal bores that have dominated the chess world for the last 60 years.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Huh? "Westerners" have trouble handling it? Why exactly?
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Most Westerners expect games to have clearly defined end-points. Many people respond to rules like "The game ends when both players agree" with "well, what if I refuse? Huh? What are you going to do about it?".
There are two examples here (Go and Shogi) of such games from the East, can you name similar game rules from the West that appear in games played for money?
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Many people respond to rules like "The game ends when both players agree" with "well, what if I refuse? Huh? What are you going to do about it?".
That's not really a problem with the rules as with simple English comprehension. Answer that phrase with "then both players wouldn't be agreeing, would they?" and roll your eyes.
There are two examples here (Go and Shogi) of such games from the East, can you name similar game rules from the West that appear in games played for money?
These are two games from Japan, not the East. And two games aren't really enough to do a comparison, but the basic mechanism extends to most "Western" games as well. In Go, when both players agree to end the game, then one player most likely knows he or she has lost, simply by looking at the board. The losing player has basically conceded the game, and simply requires his or her opponent to agree to the concession. In chess it's basically the same thing, only the winner's concession is automatically agreed to.
Many, many chess games (for money) end well before a defined endpoint (or checkmate). Many end in a draw.
In Shogi you apparently can't offer a draw; I'd say that it is even less consensus-based than chess--the rules take precedence, and you need a definite endpoint, something which I don't think you'll find in most Western games (where an ability to forfeit is implicitly granted).
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
As long as one is aware that it is a generalisation then there's nothing wrong with it. It is fair enough to say that Americans prefer American Football to Association Football as long as you are not saying "All Americans", The former is a reasonable generalisation and the latter is racism.
That's not really a problem with the rules as with simple English comprehension.
No, it is a real fact of the rules. Chess has a finite length (1500 turns) beyond which the players can not possibly prolong it, Go does not.
These are two games from Japan, not the East
Go is Chinese, Shogi is Japanese.
In Shogi you apparently can't offer a draw;
That's basically correct but there is a complex limbo arising out of the rules whereby a termination of the game can be forced by player A, letting player B win while a forced termination of the game by player B causes a draw. Therefore neither player wishes to end the game and neither are required to make the final move. In practice games such are almost impossible to arise and the players would be expected to abandon the game and play again.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
But we're talking about 2 different things; the popularity of the football games is something external and concrete that can be measured. Saying there is a cognitive limitation on westerners that inhibits their understanding of the game isn't.
No, it is a real fact of the rules. Chess has a finite length (1500 turns) beyond which the players can not possibly prolong it, Go does not.
But the point still is the decision to end the game has to be mutual. And chess can be played until infinity as far as I know, though I don't really involve myself with the game that much. Picture a board with only 2 kings and a rook on it; either player can keep it going on to infinity. Now either player can demand (and receive) a draw if certain requirements are met (50 moves without a capture or pawn moved for example), but neither side is obligated to demand it.
Go is Chinese, Shogi is Japanese.
I stand corrected. But still, Japan and China still aren't the entire "East".
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
I'm claiming a cultural bias in the way people approach certain things; the limitation is not cognitive in the sense of there being some difference inherent in the person.
Do you agree that culture can create such bias? If not, what is culture?
As regards the 50-move rule I don't think it's normally regarded as a volutary rule. obviously, if there is no referee then both players can ignore it or any other rule.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2)
Well, I don't see any evidence that they are. If you look at the FIDA rules for tournament play, for example, they basically assume that the players hate each other and will never agree to anything. Everything is prescribed and a non-consenting approach is assumed throughout.
My feeling and experience is that this is the norm for tournament-level play in all games and sports in the West.
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, I guess you don't involve yourself with the game much... This is an elementary forced win for the guy with the rook
Re:Japanese ABC (was: Shogi and Go) (Score:1)
Wrong. Both of them are Japanese:
Sho-Gi: Sho means "General(s)", Gi means "Chess" (i.e., chess of the Generals)
Go: simply means five
Re:Japanese ABC (was: Shogi and Go) (Score:2)
TWW
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:1)
Re:Shogi and Go (Score:1)
Backgammon used to have the problem of interminably long drawn-out games. Players in clearly lost positions would play on hoping for some miracle sequence of dice rolls.
Then, in the 40's some genius at the Cavandish Club in NY invented the doubling cube, which revolutionized the game. Now if, for instance, your only chance of winning a $20 game is rolling three consecutive sets of boxcars, your gonna have to resign if your opponent doubles the stakes to $40 on you. (Do you _really_ want to bet $20 you can roll 6-6, 6-6, 6-6?)
I've often thought that introducing a doubling cube to the world of chess would end those boring end-games...
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that count in binary, and those that don't.
Speaking of chess variations (Score:1, Offtopic)
On the net (Score:5, Informative)
Re:On the net (Score:2)
Re:On the net (Score:2)
The board differs, the Xiangqi board is made up of ten horizontal lines and nine vertical lines and a "river". Shogi is played on a 9x9 uncheckered board. The pieces differs as well.
Check out www.chessvariants.com for details on each game.
Quick question (Score:2)
Whats a nice free (GPL preferred, Beer otherwise) Shogi varient for Win32 and Linux?
Re:Quick question (Score:1)
GNUShogi (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.gnu.org/directory/gnushogi.
XShogi:
http://www.gnu.org/software/xshogi/xsh
GNUShogi comes with tutorial.
I think you can quess the license.
Games imitating life or vice versa? (Score:1)
Sounds very much like Taliban fighters!
chess vs shogi (Score:2)
The thing is, is that chess is sufficiently small in dimensions and variety of pieces that it achieves a certain sparness of balance compared to Shogi, which is more complex in a variety of ways.
A good way for testing computer intelligence would to have a computer playing shogi, and become expert in it's use. Point being here is that there are not alot of western experts in Shogi, and so the possibility for an AI to learn the game beyond the obvious potemtial knoledge of the western experts is interesting
Re:chess vs shogi (Score:2)
Re:chess vs shogi (Score:2)
Some handy links are Eboard [sourceforge.net], the best all-round client around and Sjeng [sourceforge.net] which is a modified Gnuchess that plays a rather mean game of crazyhouse.
definition of sport... (Score:2, Insightful)
Habu: Chess is certainly a sport....
Ok, this is my pet peeve I get on when I've got too much time on my hands. Chess is not a SPORT. Its a game--a rather complex and intricate game, but a game nonetheless. Neither is golf a sport. (actually, this argument usually starts with someone saying golf is a sport--I use chess as a comparison). Just because something shows up on ESPN doesn't mean its a sport. Pool and poker, for example...
Anybody disagree?
Re:definition of sport... (Score:1)
Pool, darts, bowling, golf {I agree}- not sports, they are GAMES.
Hockey, basketball, lacrosse = sports.
Re:definition of sport... (Score:2)
Re:definition of sport... (Score:1)
Of course, I play Galtrader over a wireless network while downhill ski-wrestling so it might be a little distracting at times. ;)
Define sport (Score:2)
My definition is pretty much the same; game is just another name for sport. However, it seems to me that the modern definition of most people is "big business with a ball".
Re:definition of sport... (Score:2)
For waht it is worth, my definition of "sport" is a copetition with a clearly defined standard of winning that requires some physical activity.
Pool, for example, is a great example. You suggest that pool is not a sport. Under my definition, though, pool would be a sport since it is easy to determine a winner and it does require some physical activity.
Chess, on the other hand, has a clear winner but does not require physical action.
The reason I had to create my definition is for my least favorte "sport" - figure skating. While figure skating, and gymnastics both require an unbelievable amount of athleticism, neither have what I would consider to be a clearly defined "winner." Any activity that is judged for its winner simply cannot be a sport in my opinion.
Re:definition of sport... (Score:1)
Re:definition of sport... (Score:2)
Re:definition of sport... (Score:1)
Golf is NOT a SPORT. I'm as unbiased as it gets, considering my family owns a golf course. I say golf is not a sport based on the following reasoning:
1.) no sweat through exertion (not summer heat, for instance), no sport
2.) if there's a scoring component based on artistic merit, no sport
3.) external source of locomotion, no sport (rules out NASCAR--sorry rednecks!)
there was another one, but i forgot it... these rules are not to say that a particular game doesn't take skill--chess for instance takes a high degree of intelligence, and far be it from me to disparage players of the game. but golf is basically a game of aiming a ball at a target; you can't count carrying your bag around as part of the physical exertion because there is no scoring component for it (the use of a caddy also counts as external locomotion). Were we to consider golf a sport, we'd also have to look at hunting and archery as a sport--neither of which is true, IMHO.
Re:definition of sport... (Score:1)
Re:definition of sport... (Score:2)
Interesting Conclusion From Induction (Score:2)
Basketball, football, water polo, baseball (the object is the player; the ball is the weapon of the defenders), rugby, even that screwed up dead goat Afghani game all qualify.
The farther you get from this game definition, the harder a time people have defining something as a sport.
Sport is spoken of in the context of competition, but understood in the context of a very tightly defined game style that appears to show up cross-culturally. Interestingly enough, nobody would care about the "not a sport" thing if it wasn't from the massive legitimacy boost brought by sport-participation.
People are funny.
--Dan
Re:definition of sport... (Score:2)
Shogi and Chess (Score:2)
Although this has a stronger French connection than American connection, it could be the start of a process that could finally get shogi an appropriate level of recogniztion here. Shogi is much more of an action game than chess. Pieces dropping in from the sky, possibly promoting the move after they drop in. Yikes! Shogi has a much more traditional handicapping system for matching stronger and weaker players.
The handicapping system is combined with traditional educational/learning pattern of how to win at certain handicaps. Once you have mastered a certain level of advantage, you can move to the next one against anyone, thereby seeing progress.
Try the game if you have the patience to learn it. Maybe someone can post an on-line shogi-playing site?
Re:Shogi and Chess (Score:1)
At weekends you can often find hundreds of people to play against. It features an ELO-system, chat, practice game rooms and you can view other peoples games.
HTH,
Matt
Wasn't there an anime movie out about this? (Score:2, Funny)
Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:1)
Chess possible games are almost infinite but we know the number. Are shogi posible positions higher than chess?
Re:Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:3, Insightful)
Chess is much the simpler game from this point of view as the loss of pieces in chess is a one way trip towards simplicity. In Shogi the pieces can come back on and so the game does not have the same steady progress to an endgame. In practice, of course, most games do move towards a sparcer state but it is a major difference in the two games which would affect "solving" them.
TWW
Re:Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:2)
There are many more reasonable looking moves (especially to a computer) in the end game, than in openings and midgame. It also takes more plys (looking farther ahead in the game with mroe branches) to see if the moves pan out or not.
Re:Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:2)
Several endgames were only proven as wins or draws once computers were applied to them and computers have always played best in the endgame both in Chess and Shogi.
There are far more moves that need inspecting in the midgame and each ply makes the work harder than a ply in the endgame.
TWW
Re:Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:2)
Most moves in the early to middle game, can quickly be determined as leading to material loss, and so quickly discounted. Its very rare to have as many as 3-5 non-obviously-stupid moves early to mid game.
In the end game, each rook and bishop has up to 14 squares to choose from, and there's less obvious reasons why any of those squares is obviously stupid.
Re:Will shogi be Solved by Computers before chess? (Score:2)
The end game is tactics, mid game is strategy and chess programs suck at strategy.
TWW
Computers still struggling ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Lautier: Are computers a threat for Shogi ?
Habu: In mating problems, called Tsume Shogi, the computer is already superior to the best players. In normal games, however, the computer is still far from the professional level. Its level can be compared to a 4-dan among amateurs [approximately 2300 strength in chess Elo terms. The first dan among professionals starts after the amateur 6-dan. To get a rough idea, the best Shogi players in the world, including Mr Habu, have a ranking of professional 9-dan - JL].
This is one example of the prevailing sad state of affairs of the performance of AI in games. The best chessplaying programs are those which use brute force search and little else. The fact that they can beat world champions tells us little except that the effective branching factor in chess is small. In games like go and shogi where the branching factor is much higher, long-term strategy counts much more, and brute-force is relatively useless, computers are nowhere near the best humans.
Another example: As early as 1962 Samuels wrote a checker playing program which could learn from its previous games and beat reasonably strong humans. After that there has been virtually no progress in game strategy; all the improvement has been in hardware speed. Indeed, it wasn't until 1994 that the first wold-champion-beating checker player, "Chinook" [wisc.edu] was written. This is an amazingly slow rate of progress compared to other areas of computer science/technology.
Its a shame, considering that game playing is thought to be one of the easiest problem domains for AI.
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't really matter how you come up with the list of moves to eval. Computers do it very differently from the way humans do, but the only important bit is the scoring.
Human players tend to look at chunks of the board, and go with much more of a gut instinct. They try for a favored style, and play the other person much more than the board. Computers crank out moves and look for the objectivly best, without worrying about whether the opponent prefers open or closed positions, etc.
Anybody can write a brute force move generator, but you still need an IM on your team if you want the computer to know if the generated moves are actually any good.
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:1)
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:3, Insightful)
> Its a shame, considering that game playing is thought to be one of the easiest problem domains for AI.
I'm not very knowledgable about games specifically, but the impression that I got from my undergrad AI class a few semesters ago was that neither of these statements are true. There has been significant improvement in search techniques since 1962, and game playing is hard enough that it hasn't made a dent that is noticable to the general public. The problem of search is general to a lot of AI, not just games, so these things proceed at the same pace. Perhaps it's just that the domains that the public notices are ones where the statespace is small, but the active research problems (at least in multi-agent systems which is what I am familiar with) often seem to involve really massive statespaces, like games such as chess and go.
I also am pretty sure that the really competent game systems do considerably more than brute force. Chinook if it is the checker-player that I am thinking of has a massive endgame and opening game book, and a lot of heuristics for overall strategy. I don't think any really succesful chess player uses simple brute force either.
In short, saying that game playing is simple compared to other AI seems to me like the people at MIT before looking at vision, saying that they could have that problem solved in a few weeks. It's still wide open, and probably will be for an indefinite amount of time, along with games.
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:2)
It isn't just search. The best chess programs also have a huge database of end-games and start-games. And this at least is similar to how actual chess experts play: many spend a large proportion of their training reading and 'memorizing' these same game patterns.
That being said, the true high-performance chess computers are not really serious scientific AI; they are mostly advertisements for how good the hardware and software wizardry at IBM are. Probably, more knowledge about how people play chess is found in Bill Chase's 25-year-old paper "The Mind's Eye in Chess", than in all of the subsequent IBM chess programs. Most serious AI is focused on real-world problems, like getting robots to play soccer and stacking blocks in a virtual world.
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:2)
Certainly in Go, the best computers can't yet even beat a good club player. In situations where they can use a play-book (such as fusekis, openings), or on small boards (9x9 instead of 19x19), computers play pretty well. With the full game, they just suck. I think part of the problem is that it's hard to write down good mathematical rules to determine whether stones are live or dead, or what "good shape" looks like. So, whereas a human player will just intuitively put their stones in the right place, the computer blunders about and loses quickly.
It's nice to be superior to machines, at least in one field of endeavour. :)
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is obviously not possible since chess games use 6-10 times as many moves as the best computer can foresee.
So the computer must rely on an algorithm to:
a) Quickly discard stupid moves. You don't have to compute 12 moves deep if after 3 moves youve already lost the queen and two towers.
b) Anticipate the opponents moves.
c) Judge and compare different positions and take the best one out of them.
All these factors are extremely complex, and there has been a lot of software-based progress in the last years.
Re:Computers still struggling ... (Score:2)
Deep Blue beat Kasparov not with raw GP computing horsepower, but with extravagant custom hardware designed specifically to solve the chess problem.
Purpose-built silicon can yield orders-of-magnitude speed improvements.
Different game rules, of course, dictate the depth of the problem space; Shogi may certainly just be deeper than chess, and/or more resistant to "traditional" brute force attacks... Of course, as others have said here, the state of the art in chess AI is well beyond simple brute force.
-David
Wait... (Score:1)
excel in two fields (Score:1)
Re:excel in two fields (Score:1)
Marion Jones, one of the most be medalled in track and field in olympics and basketball.
Re:excel in two fields (Score:1)
(Some confirmation [inet.tele.dk] on the Agdestein story is also available, if you're interested.)
I am also led to understand that some of the lesser British chess GMs make more money from poker than they do from chess.
Re:excel in two fields (Score:1)
Re:excel in two fields (Score:1)
It's a game, enjoy it and have fun (Score:1)
Shogi can improve your chess (Score:2, Interesting)
Use Yahoo IM and Google? Try YIMGoogle [tropo.com]
Gnu Shogi (Score:1)
People cursed to be on a windoze platform might check out Shocky [helsinki.fi]
If you prefer tactile response, you may want to go here [icdchess.com] instead.
aem
On the subject of Michael Jordan... (Score:3, Insightful)
I like to give a plug for this book every now and then: Why Michael Couldn't Hit: And Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports [amazon.com]. Even if you don't care at all about sports, this book is a fascinating read. It describes how the brain and neurology is linked with being a world-class athlete. What I found especially interesting is that the author makes a good case that there are small windows during growing up where you must play a particular sport in order to be world-class at it. If you miss the window, you miss your chance. After that, your brain does not have plasticity to devote a specialized part of itself to the sport. He also makes the case that being a world-class musician has similar windows.
I would imagine that there are similar cases to be made about being world-class at a particular mental sport such as chess.
Highly recommended.
Cross-Learning (Score:2, Insightful)
Mental vs. Mental/Physical (Score:1)
The only thing that seperates Shogi and Chess are the rules, pieces and board on which the game is played. At their cores, both games are turn based and both require the player to think several moves in advance to be even remotely successful. If the players knows the rules and has that skill, the jump is relatively easy to make, especially one of Habu's caliber.
Basketball to baseball? Entirely different story. Not only are the rules, pieces (players) and field of play different, but now you have to deal with an entirely new set of physical conditionings as well. Sure, Jordan is fit, but instead of a 3-pointer or jam, your now asking him to hit a small round object moving in excess of 80mph with a stick. The author of the artical doesn't seem to think that's a worthy challenge in and of itself.
I guess what I'm saying is that chess and Shogi are purely games of the mind. If you have that extreemly valuble skill of looking ahead to your next 5-15 moves, the transition isn't as great. But add some sort of mental/physical reconditioning on top of that? I'd humbly submit that it's slightly more challenging to up and switch.
Re:Mental vs. Mental/Physical (Score:2)
"The only thing that seperates Shogi and Chess are the rules, pieces and board on which the game is played."
Hmmm... the only differences between a person and a grasshopper are the range of movement, number of legs, and average living environment.
Rules, pieces, board. Seems pretty comprehensive to me
Another Shogi player you might have heard of (Score:1)
Good luck Demis! (...and Stephen and Les [cam.ac.uk]...)
Wow (Score:1)
He's not an IM .. yet (Score:1)
There have been other successful examples of individuals "crossing" sports. Jonty Rhodes who is a cricket international for South Africa, used to play for the South African hockey team as well. It shows as he was probably the best athlete in cricket in the nineties. In first decade of the 20th century, C.B.Fry represented England in both its cricket and soccer teams. Of course, Deion Sanders was reasonably successful at baseball to complement his football.
shogi, chess, go (Score:1)
I would not call shogi an odd game. The drops alluded to above are what make the game interesting. Chess is just too "all analytical". Shogi at least has some bits that are based on intuition. Go on the other hand... so much intuition. It's beautiful.
I'd say that of the three games, a shogi master would find it easiest to master chess. Chess probably couldn't master shogi as easily, and neither could master go all that readily.
Re:Shogi description redundant (Score:1)