Shogi FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
The most common questions about the rules, terms and finer points of shogi.
Nifu (二歩, "two pawns") forbids having two unpromoted pawns of your own in the same file. If you already have an unpromoted pawn in a file you cannot drop another pawn there. A promoted pawn (tokin) no longer counts as a pawn.
Usually it is optional: you decide when a piece moves into, within or out of the promotion zone. It becomes compulsory when an unpromoted piece could never move again — a pawn or lance on the last rank, or a knight on the last two ranks.
A piece you capture is not removed from the game; it goes to your hand and becomes yours. On your turn you may drop one of these pieces onto any empty square instead of moving. Dropped pieces always land unpromoted.
The three ranks furthest from you: ranks 1–3 for Sente and 7–9 for Gote.
The king and the gold general.
A promoted silver (narigin, 全) moves exactly like a gold general: one square forward, diagonally forward, sideways or straight back.
It becomes a tokin (と) and moves like a gold general. It is a cheap but powerful attacker — if captured, the opponent only gains a pawn.
No, they get stronger. The rook becomes a dragon (龍) and adds one-square diagonal moves; the bishop becomes a horse (馬) and adds one-square orthogonal moves.
No. Even when dropped inside the promotion zone it lands unpromoted and may promote only on a later move.
It is illegal to give checkmate by dropping a pawn. Dropping a pawn to give check is fine, as long as it is not mate. Checkmating by moving a pawn already on the board is allowed.
If the same position (including pieces in hand and side to move) occurs four times, the game is a draw and professionals replay it with colours reversed. A player who causes the repetition by perpetual check loses instead.
No. A player with no legal moves loses, even if their king is not in check.
The shogi board has 9×9 = 81 squares, all the same colour.
Sente (先手) is the player who moves first; gote (後手) moves second. In diagrams they are also called Black and White.
Traditionally decided by furigoma: five pawns are tossed, and if most land unpromoted side up, the tossing player becomes sente.
The lance (kyōsha) moves any number of squares straight forward. It cannot move backward, sideways or diagonally.
Yes — it is the only shogi piece that can. It jumps two squares forward and one sideways, and unlike the chess knight it only moves forward.
It returns to its unpromoted form in your hand: a captured tokin becomes a pawn, a dragon becomes a rook, and so on.
Tsume shogi (詰将棋) are mating problems in which the attacker must give check on every move and the defender always plays the reply that delays mate longest. They are the best way to train calculation — try them in our Puzzles section.
There is no one-move castling. Instead the king is walked into a protective formation called a kakoi (castle) over several moves — Yagura, Mino and Anaguma are well-known examples.
There is no limit. You can keep every piece you capture and drop it whenever you like.
Both are kings. Traditionally the higher-ranked player uses Ō (王) and the other uses Gyoku (玉). They move identically.
Founded in 1924, the Japan Shogi Association (日本将棋連盟) ranks professional players and organises title matches such as the Meijin and Ryūō.
Files are numbered 1–9 from right to left and ranks 1–9 (or a–i) from top to bottom. For example 7g7f moves the pawn on file 7 one square forward; a drop is written like P*5e.
Yes. Since the mid-2010s engines such as Ponanza, elmo and YaneuraOu have beaten the strongest professionals, and today professionals use AI in their preparation.
Yes. Because captured pieces return, shogi demands constant foresight, planning and focus. In Japan it is widely taught in schools and clubs.