Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi and shogi. The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh century India. The rules of chess as they are known today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games played by millions of people worldwide.
Shogi, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, chaturanga, xiangqi, Indian chess, and janggi. Shōgi means general's board game.
Xiangqi, commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga, and Indian chess. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, this game is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng, literally 'General's chess'.
A chessboard is a gameboard used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the board is oriented such that each player's near-right corner square is a light square.
Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 4,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day. A 2016 survey by the International Go Federation's 75 member nations found that there are over 46 million people worldwide who know how to play Go, and over 20 million current players, the majority of whom live in East Asia.
Checkmate is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
Tsumego (詰碁) is the Japanese term for a type of go problem based on life-and-death. The term likely comes from tsumeshogi, as tsumeru (詰める) means checkmating in shogi but has different meanings in go. Tsumego problems are common in newspaper columns.
Tori shōgi is a variant of shogi, which was invented by Toyota Genryu in 1799 despite being traditionally attributed to his master Ōhashi Sōei. It was first published in 1828 and again in 1833. The game is played on a 7×7 board and uses the drop rule; it is the only traditional shogi variant, possibly besides wa shogi, to do so. This is one of the more popular shogi variants. There were tournaments in London and Royston in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Chess notation systems are used to record either the moves made or the position of the pieces in a game of chess. Chess notation is used in chess literature, and by players keeping a record of an ongoing game. The earliest systems of notation used lengthy narratives to describe each move; these gradually evolved into more compact notation systems. Algebraic notation is now the accepted international standard, with several variants. Descriptive chess notation was used in English- and Spanish-language literature until the late 20th century, but is now obsolescent. Portable Game Notation (PGN) is a text file format based on English algebraic notation which can be processed by most chess software. Other notation systems include ICCF numeric notation, used for international correspondence chess, and systems for transmission using Morse code over telegraph or radio. The standard system for recording chess positions is Forsyth–Edwards Notation (FEN).
Yari shogi is a modern variant of shogi ; however, it is not Japanese. It was invented in 1981 by Christian Freeling of the Netherlands. This game accentuates shogi’s intrinsically forward range of direction by giving most of the pieces the ability to move any number of free squares orthogonally forward like a shogi lance. The opposite is true of promoted pieces which can move backward with the same power.
Heian shōgi is a predecessor of modern shogi. Some form of chess almost certainly reached Japan by the 9th century, if not earlier, but the earliest surviving Japanese description of the rules dates from the early 12th century. Unfortunately, this description does not give enough information to actually play the game, but this has not stopped people from attempting to reconstruct this early form of shogi.
Shō shōgi is a 16th-century form of shogi, and the immediate predecessor of the modern game. It was played on a 9×9 board with the same setup as in modern shogi, except that an extra piece stood in front of the king: a 'drunk elephant' that promoted into a prince, which is effectively a second king. While 9×9 may not seem 'small', it was smaller than the other shogi variants prevalent at the time, which were the 12×12 chu shogi and 15×15 dai shogi. According to the Sho Shōgi Zushiki, the drunk elephant was eliminated by the Emperor Go-Nara, and it is assumed that the drop rule was introduced at about the same time, giving rise to shogi as we know it today.
Wa shogi is a large board variant of shogi in which all of the pieces are named for animals. It is played either with or without drops.
Heian dai shogi is an early large board variant of shogi as it was played in the Heian period. The same 12th century document which describes the Heian form of shogi also describes this variant. Unfortunately, this description does not give enough information to actually play the game, but this has not stopped people from attempting to reconstruct this early form of shogi. A fairly complete and playable reconstruction is outlined here.
Dai shogi or Kamakura dai shogi (鎌倉大将棋) is a chess variant native to Japan. It derived from Heian era shogi, and is similar to standard shogi in its rules and game play. Dai shogi is only one of several large board shogi variants. Its name means large shogi, from a time when there were three sizes of shogi games. Early versions of dai shogi can be traced back to the Kamakura period, from about AD 1230. It was the historical basis for the later, much more popular variant chu shogi, which shrinks the board and removes the weakest pieces.
Kō shōgi is a large-board variant of shogi, or Japanese chess. The game dates back to the turn of the 18th century and is based on xiangqi and go as well as shogi. Credit for its invention has been given to Confucian scholar Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), who had also described the rules of the game in his book, Kōshōgifu (廣象棋譜).
Okisaki shogi is a modern variant of shogi. It was developed by Masayuki Nakayachi c. 1996 from suggestions by German chess player Ralph Blockhaus.
A board game record is a game record for a board game.
Shogi notation is the set of various abbreviatory notational systems used to describe the piece movements of a shogi game record or the positions of pieces on a shogi board.
