Shogi Strategy: an example checkmate

Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.

–Sun-Zi’s, The Art of War

Here in Ireland, I haven’t been able to find someone to play Shogi with, so I have been playing with myself instead.* Here’s an example of a recent game against myself where I scored a nice, 3-step checkmate:

The order of attack was as follows:

1. The bishop (in red) was lined up to attack the king, which had been on the 2nd square from the left. If you notice though, the pawns are in the way.
2. Next, I dropped a knight, shown in green. Because the pawn was pinned by the bishop, it could not capture the knight, thus the king was in check and had to move over to the left.
3. Finally, I had a rook to drop for checkmate, shown in light-blue.

Click on the photo (taken from my mobile phone, sorry for the bad quality), for a better look. This is a nice example of using a combination of pieces to move the king where you want him to be for a final drop. Now, earlier the king should have moved the pawn under the lancer down a square, giving the king a nice escape route. Since he didn’t he was trapped.

In Shogi, because so many pieces are short-range pieces, if a king is in the open, it’s easy for him to dodge attacks and drops, unless the opponent has a lot of rooks and bishops to attack with. Usually, if the game is that one-sided, it’s over anyways.**

I’ll post more screen-shots as I continue to defeat myself.

Namuamidabu

* – No jokes, please. :p

** – Though speaking from experience, a good fork will quickly turn the game around.