Shogi (将棋) is a Japanese board game in which two players each move twenty pieces across a 9×9 board, aiming to capture the opposing king.
It shares its roots with Korean janggi and Western chess, but one rule changes everything: a piece you capture becomes yours, and you can drop it back onto the board. Pieces rarely leave the game, and the result can turn until the very last move.
In 1993, Heian-period pieces were excavated at the former grounds of Kōfuku-ji in Nara. They are the oldest shogi pieces found in Japan, and their five-sided shape and ink lettering look almost like today’s.
Descended from India’s ancient chaturanga, the game was refined in Japan, and the rule of reusing captured pieces is thought to have settled in around this time — giving shogi its modern form.
The shogunate sponsored shogi houses, and each year an official game was played before the shogun (oshiro shogi). Its date, the 17th of the eleventh month, is why November 17 is still “Shogi Day”.
The Tokyo Shogi Federation was formed, the forerunner of today’s Japan Shogi Association — and the base on which title matches and the pro system grew.
About 4.6 million people in Japan played shogi in a year (Leisure White Paper 2024). Since Sota Fujii’s rise, online play and watching games have grown alongside it.
Tendo in Yamagata Prefecture makes more shogi pieces than anywhere else in Japan. It began in the late Edo period as a side job for samurai of the Tendo domain, and was designated a national traditional craft in 1996.
Every April, as the cherry trees bloom, people in armour and kimono become the pieces themselves in a game of “human shogi” (人間将棋).
Millions enjoy shogi in Japan, but few in Korea have tried it yet. Hello Shogi was made in the hope that more people in Korea will start playing. We share rules, strategy, news and culture in Korean, at the level of someone picking up a piece for the first time.
Watch with us on YouTubeKorean janggi and Japanese shogi branched from the same ancestor. Only a handful of rules set them apart.
In professional play, a foul loses the game on the spot (hansoku-make). These are the fouls every beginner should know.
Dropping a pawn on a file (here the fourth) that already holds one of your unpromoted pawns. It still happens even in professional games.
Giving checkmate by dropping a pawn from hand on 12 is illegal, even though the king has nowhere to go. Mating by moving a pawn already on the board is fine.
Placing a piece where it can never move again. An unpromoted pawn or lance cannot stand on the last rank, nor a knight on the last two; moving there requires promotion.
A game of shogi starts and ends with a bow. Here it is in three parts: before the game, during it (opening, middle game, endgame) and after.
※ Move ranges are rough guides; every game differs.
Start fair and polite
Castle your king
Trade for an edge
Be one move faster
Accept and learn
The biggest difference is that captured pieces can be dropped back in as your own. Pieces also promote when they enter the enemy camp, and the king is not confined to a palace.
Twenty per player, forty in all, in eight kinds: king, rook, bishop, gold, silver, knight, lance and pawn.
Because captured pieces change sides, colour would not work. Ownership is shown by the direction the wedge-shaped piece points.
In professional games the first player wins slightly more often (low 50s per cent), a small edge next to differences in skill.
Professional games usually end around 100–120 moves: about 30 moves of opening, then the middle game, then the endgame.
Online games often take 10–30 minutes. Professional title matches can run over two days.
If you know chess or janggi you are halfway there. Learn the eight pieces and the drop rule and you can play; with children, start with Dōbutsu Shōgi on a 3×4 board.
No. A handful of characters is enough, and some apps offer pieces with pictures or English letters.
Shogi Wars, 81Dojo and Lishogi let you play people, and apps such as Piyo Shogi let you practise against AI. See Apps and online play in the Life tab.
Some shops in Japan ship abroad. The Goods and shops section in the Life tab marks which ones ship to Korea.
Apps such as Shogi Wars move you up from kyu to dan as you win. Professionals start at 4-dan after the Shōreikai apprentice league.
In professional play an illegal move loses at once. See the fouls section above for the common ones.
