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A Shogi Champion Turns to Chess

Posted by michael on from the games-for-geeks dept.

FFriedel writes "Michael Jordan tried it with baseball, and it, like, didn't work out too well for him. But what about a professional Shogi champion switching to chess? Yoshiharu Habu, one of the most gifted players in the history of the ancient Japanese game, has taken a casual interest in chess - and already reached IM strength. He is currently playing in a tournament in Paris, where chess grandmaster Joel Lautier interviewed him." Shogi is a very odd game if you're used to chess. Most of the pieces have biases toward forward motion, and when you capture an enemy piece, you can bring it back into play for your side.

2 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. On the net by petis · · Score: 5, Informative

    If anyone wants to play some Chess, Xiangqi (chinese chess), Go or some other boardgames online then you should check out this site. Unfortunately they don't have Shogi (yet).

  2. Re:It's like ya know..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The submitter's section is quoted straight from the introduction of the article. (you would know that if you'd read the article, the submitter == the author)

    The author is Frederic Friedel, who also happens to be the guy behind much of chessbase.com, I think. He is probably not a native English speaker; he speaks several languages (judging from Google and chessbase research), including German, English, and Spanish. He is also an expert on computer chess. (and a very good chess player, having conversed with Garry Kasparov on things like the Brains of the World puzzle)

    This is just an aside. I believe that linguistically speaking, the 'like,' bit was a sly dig at Michael Jordan and US culture, i.e. he used 'valley girl' lingo to express the 'oh well it didn't work out, so what' impression that he may have received from Jordan's failed baseball career. (and contrasted that with the undisputed Shogi grandmaster who has achieved International Master status barely a decade after teaching himself chess by reading a book about it)

    Now, much of the linguistic implication outlined above is relatively speculative. But it suggests that he knew what he was talking above, and that it had some 'deeper' meaning.

    Besides, making fun of someone who is a fairly high-level chess player and who speaks several languages well enough to converse and report in them, simply because he used some 'funny' phrasing, is kind of silly. Don't you think?

    (posting anonymously to preserve my precious karma)

    ASBTA