Shogi strategy: Castling

Posted: March 1, 2008 | Author: Doug | Filed under: Shogi | 3 Comments »

When we cannot defeat the enemy, we should take up a defensive position. When we can defeat the enemy, we should engage battle.
–Sun-Zi, “Art of War”

In Shogi, unlike Chess, you have to spend a lot more time setting up your defense early in the beginning. Typically in a Shogi game, you will allocate half of your side for defense, and the other half as your attack wing. Unlike Chess, castling is more complicated, and doesn’t just involve flipping the king and rook. You actually have to spend several moves shuffling pieces around getting your king in the right place.

You should never leave your king in the middle. There are some nasty forks you can accomplish if you drop the bishop in the right place. Some beginners like to throw everything in a massive attack, but if the attack is stopped, the game goes downhill fast.

So, in Shogi, there are two castle strategies worth memorizing: the Yagura Castle and the Mino Gakoi.

My favorite is the Mino Gakoi:

This castle is quick to setup (6 moves only), puts your rook closer to the center, and leaves more time for aggressive players to control the board. The setup should go in this order, but could vary:

1. Move the rook all the way over to the 4th column from the left.
2. Move the king up-and-right, then two more moves to the right. It will sit where the rook used to be.
3. Move the right silver-general up a square.
4. Move the left gold-general up-and-right.

The king can also move after the two generals have moved but the end-result is the same.

The Mino Gakoi is a light-weight castle that can be picked apart by dropping a knight to attack the outer-most gold-general, but as a quick castle it may be enough. Also, in among Japanese players, you’ll variations of this castle, but as I am a newbie, I just stick with the textbook one for now.

For a much stronger, but more complex castle, you can look at the Yagura Castle:

If you execute correctly, it takes a minimum of 12 moves, but if you do it right, it will give you a very strong castle and leave the rook-side pieces (rook, silver and knight + pawns) free to wreak havoc. As a bonus, your bishop now covers a nice diagonal in the middle for added coverage of attack pieces. However, if your opponent is sneaky and aggressive, you can get caught in mid-castle and suffer big losses; it happens to me often, so I should know. Consider carefully.

My way of doing the Yagura Castle is the following steps, which are good to memorize (cuts down on mistakes that waste moves):

1. Move the 3rd column (from the left) pawn up first. This is the traditional bishop opening anyways.
2. Move the left gold-general up-and-left, defending the bishop.
3. Move the left silver-general up-and-right.
4. Now move the 4th column pawn up.
5. Move the left silver-general up-and-left, so it sits above the gold.
6. Now move the bishop down-and-right, so it sits under the gold.
7. Now move the 5th column pawn up. Your bishop now covers a nice diagonal across the middle of the board.
8. Move the bishop up-and-right on square so it sits right of the gold-general.
9. Now spend two moves moving the right gold general up-and-left so it sits above the bishop.
10. Now spend three moves moving the king to the left where the bishop had started out.

The only real way to pick apart a Yagura castle is to throw chep pieces at the bishop (like a knight or promoted pawn). Also, if you manage to get two rooks, you can sneak them under the castle and just attack the left knight. If the knight has already moved away, then a rook and another piece like a general can go under the castle and harass the king.

As with the Mino Gakoi, there are tons of variations, but I stick with the textbook one for now.

A third well-known castle exists called the Anaguma or “Badger” Castle:

In this castle, which can be done on either side, though usually on the left, the king moves all the way into the corner, with two golds blocking the side and a silver to guard the diagonal approach. I haven’t been able to get this to work without wasting lots of moves and getting pounded by the opponent, so I don’t recommend it. This site seems to imply how this can be done, so I re-created his steps like so:

1. Move the rook to the 3rd or 4th column from the left.
2. Move the king up-and-right. Then spend two more moves moving the king where the rook had started.
3. Now move the right lancer up one space.
4. Move the king in the bottom-right corner where the lancer had been.
5. Now move the right silver-general up-and-right so it sits over the knight.
6. Now move the right gold-general also up-and-right.
7. Now spend a few moves moving the left gold-general either a) under the other gold, or b) to its left.

Anyways, in the game of Shogi, defense is much more complex than Chess, and time-consuming, but practice really does make perfect.
Namuamidabu

P.S. Images were made by me using MacShogi. It’s a great program if you own a Mac. The saved games are worth it!

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