Shogi

Overview

Japanese chess, played on a 9×9 board. The defining rule is drops: captured pieces change sides and may be returned to the board as your own. Nothing is ever removed permanently.

Checked against the Japan Shogi Association's 対局規則 (Rules of Play), the rules for its professional and amateur events, in the edition published October 2025. The document is in Japanese; article numbers below refer to it.

1. The board and pieces

9×9, with flat five-sided pieces that point toward the opponent — that direction is what shows ownership, since both players use identical pieces.

Each side has twenty pieces:

Piece	Count	Movement
King (玉/王)	1	One square any direction
Rook (飛)	1	Any distance orthogonally
Bishop (角)	1	Any distance diagonally
Gold general (金)	2	One square, any direction except diagonally backward
Silver general (銀)	2	One square diagonally, or straight forward
Knight (桂)	2	Jumps two forward and one across — forward only
Lance (香)	2	Any distance straight forward
Pawn (歩)	9	One square forward

Shogi pawns capture straight ahead, unlike chess.

2. Drops — the rule that defines shogi

A captured piece goes into your hand. On any turn, instead of moving, you may drop a piece from your hand onto any empty square as your own.

Restrictions:

• A dropped piece is never promoted on arrival.
• You may not drop a piece where it would have no legal move — a pawn or lance on the last rank, a knight on the last two.
• Two pawns rule (nifu): you may not drop a pawn into a file that already contains one of your unpromoted pawns.
• You may not deliver immediate checkmate with a dropped pawn (uchifuzume). Check is fine; mate is not.

3. Promotion

The three ranks furthest from you are the promotion zone.

A piece moving into, within, or out of the zone may promote, by flipping it to show its reverse side.

Piece	Promotes to
Pawn, lance, knight, silver	Gold general movement
Rook	Rook plus one-square king moves
Bishop	Bishop plus one-square king moves

Promotion is optional, except where the piece would otherwise have no legal move. A promoted piece never turns back while it stays on the board (Article 5).

4. Who moves first

In JSA events the first player (sente) is decided by furigoma: five of one player's pawns are tossed, and whether more land showing the pawn side or the promoted side decides who starts (Article 7).

5. Winning

Checkmate, or your opponent resigns (Article 6).

Fouls lose the game at once (Article 10), including: two unpromoted pawns in one file; a piece moved or dropped where it can never move again; checkmate by a pawn drop; leaving your king in check or moving it into check; perpetual check; moving twice; taking a move back; and running out of time.

6. Repetition and impasse

Repetition (sennichite). When the same position, with the same pieces in hand and the same player to move, occurs four times, the game is not scored as a draw. It is replayed from the start with colours swapped (Article 8).

Perpetual check is different. If the position repeats four times and every move by one player in the cycle was a check, the checking player loses (Article 10).

Impasse (jishogi). When both kings have entered the enemy camp and neither can be mated, the players may agree to count material: rook and bishop score 5 points each and every other piece except the king 1. With 24 or more each, the game is replayed; a player with fewer than 24 loses (Article 9). Without agreement, a player may claim under the declaration rule, and at 500 moves the game is replayed. Events may use a 27-point system instead.

Commonly argued

• Captured pieces change sides. This is the whole game.
• You cannot drop a second pawn into the same file.
• You cannot checkmate with a dropped pawn — only with a moved one.
• Dropped pieces never arrive promoted.
• Shogi knights move forward only, and jump.
• Repetition is not a draw. The game is replayed with colours swapped.
• Perpetual check loses for the side giving it.