Shogi is Japanese chess, played on a 9 × 9 board. Sente (you, at the bottom) moves first, then Gote. The goal is the same as in chess: checkmate the other king, attacking it so that it cannot get away.
All the pieces look alike and point forwards, so whose a piece is depends on which way it faces: yours point up the board, your opponent's point down.
How the pieces move
- King (K): one square in any direction.
- Rook (R): any distance across or up and down.
- Bishop (B): any distance diagonally.
- Gold (G): one square in any direction except the two back diagonals.
- Silver (S): one square straight ahead or on any diagonal.
- Knight (N): two squares ahead and one to the side, jumping over anything between. It can only ever go forwards.
- Lance (L): any distance straight ahead.
- Pawn (P): one square straight ahead. It captures the same way it moves; there is no diagonal capture.
Only the knight jumps; everything else stops at the first piece in the way. You capture by moving onto an opponent's piece.
Promotion
The three ranks furthest from you are the promotion zone. A piece that moves into, out of or inside the zone may turn over, and the page asks whether you want to. A promoted piece is marked + and shown in red.
- Pawn, lance, knight and silver all promote to a gold.
- A rook becomes a dragon: a rook that can also step one square diagonally.
- A bishop becomes a horse: a bishop that can also step one square sideways, forwards or back.
- Gold and king never promote.
Promotion is your choice, except when a piece would otherwise be stuck for ever: a pawn or lance on the last rank, or a knight on the last two. Then it must turn over.
Drops: the piece you take becomes yours
A captured piece goes into your hand (the tray beside the board), turned plain again. Instead of moving, you may drop a piece from your hand onto any empty square, and it comes back as yours. This is why shogi games rarely end in a draw: material never leaves the board.
- You may not drop a piece where it could never move again: a pawn or lance on the last rank, or a knight on the last two.
- You may not drop a pawn on a file where you already have an unpromoted pawn.
- You may not drop a pawn so that it checkmates on the spot. (Any other drop giving mate is fine, and so is a pawn moving to give mate.)
Tap a piece in your tray, then a lit square, to drop it.
Ending the game
- Checkmate wins. As in chess, you must answer check at once and may never leave your own king attacked.
- A player with no legal move at all loses; shogi has no stalemate draw.
- If the same position with the same pieces in hand comes up four times, the game is a draw (sennichite), unless one player gave check every time round, and then that player loses.
Tap a piece, then one of its dots. The last move is shaded, and a king in check glows red. Undo and the other options are in the ⋯ menu.