Shogi Lesson 1: Direction, Pieces and Turns
First: what counts as winning?
The goal is checkmate: the opposing king is attacked and cannot legally escape by moving, capturing, blocking or dropping a piece in hand. Promoting first or capturing more pieces does not itself win.
If a rook attacks the king but a piece can be dropped between them to block it, there is no mate yet. Drops must be considered when checking for an escape.
Finishing the assigned opening is exercise completion; promotion and drops are tools toward the goal.
Learn the eight basic piece movements once, with coordinates, direction and king safety. Full rules for pieces in hand, drops and promotion follow in Lesson 2.
Shogi is a two-player game with alternating turns, and the goal is to checkmate the enemy king. Both sides' pieces are the same colour; you tell them apart by the point of the five-sided piece. A piece pointing toward your opponent is yours. Sente moves first, then Gote. On this site Sente sits at the bottom and its pieces point up.
The board is 9×9 and pieces sit inside the squares. The two king characters, 王 and 玉, are the same piece. Japanese pronunciations can wait: first match king, gold, silver, knight, lance, bishop, rook and pawn to how they move.
Each side starts with 20 pieces: one king, one rook, one bishop, two each of golds, silvers, knights and lances, and nine pawns. Seen from Sente at the bottom, this site labels files a–i from left to right and ranks 1–9 from bottom to top. g3 is the seventh file, third rank; at the start a Sente pawn stands there. Flipping the board does not rename squares.
Sente moves toward higher rank numbers and Gote toward lower ones. So Sente's g3–g4 and Gote's c7–c6 are both forward moves. Japanese notation has its own system; the site coordinates are all you need for now.
Match each name to the character on the board. King (王 / 玉): one step in any direction. Gold (金): one step forward, diagonally forward, sideways or straight back — every direction except the two backward diagonals. Silver (銀): one step forward, diagonally forward or diagonally back — not sideways and not straight back.
Rook (飛): any distance along ranks and files. Bishop (角): any distance diagonally. Lance (香): any distance straight forward only. None of these three can pass another piece. Knight (桂): two squares forward and one to the side, jumping over pieces. Pawn (歩): one step forward, and it captures forward too. "Forward" depends on who owns the piece; when two pieces show the same character, the point tells you whose it is.
The board shows letter-number coordinates, and the prompts give the start and end squares directly, so you never need to convert to Japanese notation. Choose Try the moves, select the indicated pawn, then the square straight ahead of it. When it is Gote's turn, remember that Gote's forward points toward you, not up the screen.
After every move, check whether your king can be attacked. In shogi, too, you win without capturing every piece. In the exercises you play both sides to learn the flow; in a real game you obviously cannot choose your opponent's moves.
Choose Try the moves, then select each indicated piece and its destination. You play both sides so you can see how turns alternate. This is one teaching line; other legal openings are fine too.
After each move, look at the highlighted origin and destination before reading the next prompt. You can step back and retry or switch to watching the demo. Real games usually do not allow take-backs.
Demo moves
e3 → e4 / e7 → e6 / g1 → f2 / g9 → f8
A king under attack is in check (oute). You must answer with a legal move that removes every attack; if there is none, it is mate. You also may not move your king onto an attacked square, or move away a piece that is shielding your king.
This lesson covers ordinary moves only. Shogi has two special rules: captured pieces can be put back on the board on your side, and some pieces can flip over to promote once they reach the enemy camp. The next lesson explains both before the exercises. Don't assume chess rules apply here.