JI Shogi-Themed Chess on Chess.com

JI Shogi-Themed Chess is a theme I created with the idea of using shogi board and pieces in playing chess.

Kumuschiwa everyone! I hope you are doing well.

Shogi (将棋, shōgi, general's game) or Japanese Chess is the Japanese cousin of western chess. So without further ado, here is my JI Shogi-Themed Chess in both 2-kanji and 1-kanji versions!

Pieces

• As the theme is shogi, I decided to use the same kanji character used in shogi to give a shogi feeling to chess despite some of them not moving exactly the same as their chess counterparts (i.e., pawns and knights).
• The King, Rook, Bishop, Knight and Pawn used the same characters in Shogi (王将, 飛車, 角行, 桂馬 and 歩兵).
• While the the character for the Queen was taken from the Queen (奔王 “hon’ou” which literally means Free King) in Chu Shogi, which is perhaps the most popular historical variant of Shogi.
• Just like in Shogi, the pieces here in Shogi-Themed Chess also vary in sizes. Here, there are five sizes. From largest to smallest we have the:
  • King
  • Queen (major piece)
  • Rook (major piece)
  • Bishop and Knight (minor pieces)
  • Pawn
• Just like in Shogi, there are also two types of Kings (玉 and 王) here which are distinguished by a simple dot or stroke (丶) at the bottom right. In shogi, they are called the jeweled general (玉将) and the king general (王将). They are basically just the same piece and the only difference is that the jeweled general is used by the player who is either the challenger, lower-ranked, junior or younger of the two.
  • Just for reference, in most kifu (shogi game records) and shogi apps, sente (first player in shogi) has the jewel while gote (second player) has the king regardless of being the titleholder, higher rank or senior player.
  • However, in actual over-the-board shogi games, playing as sente or gote has nothing to do with getting the king or jeweled general. Who will play as sente or gote is decided by a furigoma (piece toss).
• As the pieces are not differentiated by color, White (first player) and Black (second player) are distinguished by the position of the king during setup. As we all know, the white king is at the right of its queen while the black king is at the left in the starting position.
  • Just for another reference, sente or the first player is the one that is referred to as black while gote, the second player, as white in shogi.

Other Details 

• The board and the 64 spaces are also not squares just like in standard shogi boards but rectangles in portrait orientation.
• I also added the four Star Points from Shogi boards. In here, they mark the four central squares (d4, d5, e4 and e5) which are quite important in western chess. The star points will also in a way help in guiding with the diagonals for the Queens and Bishops.
• I, however, decided to keep and use the western chess coordinates rather than the shogi coordinates as chess notations are written using chess coordinates.
   

JI Shogi-Themed Chess on Chess.com

I also created a style using Stylus browser extension (a user style manager that can change the appearance of web pages) for JI Shogi-Themed Chess to be used on Lichess.

For steps on how to install it, kindly view the detailed instructions.

Features

• Select either 2-Kanji (default) or 1-Kanji style from Settings.
• Choose between four Kings Style:
  • Jewel-King (white has the Jewel while black has the King) [default]
  • King-Jewel (white has the King while black has the Jewel)
  • Double Jewel (both have the Jewels)
  • Double King (both have the Kings)

Screenshots

Below are screenshots of how it looks on Chess.com:

The board and the 64 spaces on Chess.com, however, are perfect squares as Chess.com is using a perfect square board for chess.

Notes

• Board and pieces included
• Works with matches, puzzles, analysis and board editor
• Available in 2d

Other Styles

I also made the Dobutsu Chess userstyle for Chess.com. You can also check other userstyles that I have created at UserStyles.

Shogi and Chess: Similarities and Differences

 
In any case that you only play shogi and doesn’t know how to play chess or vice versa, the gameplay, objective and rules are kind of similar for both. This is no surprise as both games have the same origin. I’ll maybe write a how to play shogi or chess in the future but for now, Wikipedia has detailed articles on how to play chess and how to play shogi.

However, to give you the gist of it, below are some of the similarities and differences between the two:

• As a turn-based game, players take turns in moving their pieces.
• The objective is to checkmate (tsumi in shogi) the opponent’s king.
• One quite difference is that their is no drop rule in chess, which means that all captured pieces are out of play; whereas in shogi, you can drop or reuse captured pieces.
• The Kings, Rooks and Bishops move the same way in both games.
• The Kings and the Rooks also have a special move called Castling in chess.
• The Knight also moves the same way but to every direction in chess in contrast with the forward only movement of the knight in shogi.
• Pawns also move the same way but can only capture one space diagonally forward or En passant and has the option to move two spaces directly forward on its first move in chess; while it can only capture one space directly forward in shogi.
• There is also no Queen in modern shogi.
• And there are no Lances, Silver and Gold Generals in chess.
• In chess, only the pawns can promote while almost all pieces can promote in shogi.
• There are also no draw offers in shogi.

These are some and most important differences between the two. However, if you notice, both games are somewhat similar specially with the gameplay and objective.

I guess that is it for this post. Thank you for reading!

You may also view this post on my website and blog at JI Shogi-Themed Chess.

Right now, I am also trying to incorporate this design to BCMGames and will probably make a Xiangqi-Theme (Sinicized) and Janggi-Themed (Koreanized) Chess and Shogi in the near future or vice versa.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. Thank you again and have a great day! You are loved! God Bless => 

*JI Shogi-Themed Chess is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
*Modified SVG Shogi Pieces are originally by Hari Seldon licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
*奔 character used for queen was modified from Lishogi’s Chu Shogi Ryoko_1Kanji licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
*Userstyle created using the Stylus browser extension for Chess.com.
*Photo used for main image by GR Stocks on Unsplash.