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 18th World Computer Shogi Championship will be held on 3-5 May in Kisarazu, Japan. ( Registration Deadline: January 31, 2008 )
  For more information see: www.computer-shogi.org/wcsc18/index_e.html.
  English version of the rule of this year is under construction, but it is almost same as that of last year.
  (www.computer-shogi.org/wcsc17/rule_e.html)
- The Computer Shogi Grand Prix in 2002 on October 18-19, 2002 in Tokyo, Japan. This tournament is organized as an official event of the 2nd International Shogi Forum.
- The 14th World Computer Shogi Championship has been finished. The first place was for the program YSS developed by a team with main programmer H.Yamashita. For more results see: www.computer-shogi.org/wcsc14/index_e.html.
human-computer match

Some human tournament invited computer Shogi programs, but there have been no official match between professional human and computer.

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