What are the differences of Chess and Shogi?

#1 Design of the pieces

Chess is divided into two coloured wooden pieces, Black and White. You have 2 Rooks, 2 Knights, 2 Bishops, 1 Queen, 1 King and 8 pawns, which makes up 16 pieces on each side. Each chess piece has their own unique designs and sizes to differentiate themselves from a Queen to a Bishop or a Rook, etc. In Chess, the player using the white pieces is the first to start and followed by black.

However, this is reversed in Shogi, Black starts first and followed by white. In Shogi, the first mover Black is called Sente, and the second mover is called Gote. Shogi pieces or koma in Japanese, are wooden wedges with pentagonal sides. You have 1 Rook, 1 Bishop, 2 Lances, 2 Knights, 2 Silver Generals, 2 Gold Generals, 1 King and 9 pawns, which makes up 20 pieces on each side.

The Shogi pieces all look the same, how do we differentiate them from one piece to another? Each of the names of the Shogi pieces are written on the surface, each individual piece has a different name and their own movement. But the colour of the pieces are also the same, so how do we know which pieces are ours?

To indicate which player controls each piece during a game, the pointed side of your piece will be facing towards the opponent.

#2 Chess and Shogi Board

Shogi has a larger board with 81 squares, compared to the 64 squares in Chess, which leads to more permutations of Shogi positions on the board! The layout of the initial position of Shogi is also different from Chess.
Board Size
In Shogi, both sides start with the same position of pieces, The Bishop is placed always placed on the left side and the Rook on the right. While in Chess, the position of King and Queen is different for white and black.

The shape of the two boards is also different, Chess is played on a square board while Shogi is played on a rectangular board! The squares of the Chess board are checkered with alternating black and white squares but the Shogi board has no coloured squares.

Chess is usually played on the table, while there are also table Shogi boards, traditionally Shogi is played on the tatami with a very high-quality floor board or Shogi-ban in Japanese.These high-quality Shogi boards are mostly used in Shogi professional matches or prestigious title matches, like the Dragon King title match.

#3 Capturing Pieces

In Chess, capturing the enemy piece removes them from the board. Shogi on the other hand, gain the captured piece in your hand. On your turn, you can drop the captured piece to any empty squares on the board.

All Shogi pieces capture the same way they move, this is not true for Chess as chess pawns capture diagonally forwards.

In Chess, there is a rule called 'en passant,' which allows a Pawn to capture an opponent's Pawn that has just moved two squares forward. This rule does not exist in Shogi. Removing pieces in Chess slows down the endgame where there is only the King and a few pieces on the board.

Capturing pieces and redropping them.

Shogi endgames however do get faster with each turn because of the pieces are not removed and can still come back to play. In Shogi endgames, both players are usually in a mutual attack, where each player is trying to checkmate the opponent before being checkmated themselves, with dropping pieces consecutively that leads to a forced checkmate.

#4 Piece Promotion

Chess and Shogi pieces can promote their pieces into a stronger piece, but the way they promote the pieces are very different. When the chess pawn reaches the last rank of the board, it can choose to promote into a Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight.

In Shogi, the promotion zone is at the last 3 ranks of the board. All the pieces except the King and Gold General can choose to promote.

Shogi promotion squares and Shogi piece promotion

The promoted pieces have increased movement squares. Promoting a piece is optional and sometimes players underpromote a piece as an advanced technique to fork pieces or a technique for checkmate. When the promoted piece gets captured, it returns to its original form.

Forward moving pieces like the Pawn, Lance and Knight are forced to promote when they reach the last rank of the board. Piece promotion is much more common in Shogi because the promotion zone is much nearer to the starting position. In fact, players can promote starting from the 3rd move during a bishop trade.

#5 Piece Movements

Chess and Shogi pieces have different movements. For example, Chess pawns can choose to move two spaces forward on their first move, while in Shogi, pawns can only move one space at a time. The movement of knights are also different in both games, Shogi Knights are weaker because they can only move forwards.

In Shogi, most of the pieces move only one square except the Rook and Bishop while Chess has mostly high mobility pieces. This makes Shogi games slower in the opening where both players spend their moves setting up their attack and protecting the king with different castle formations.

#6 Castling

Speaking of castles, Castling in Chess and Shogi are different, The castling rule is unique to Chess, where the king and one of the rooks can move together in a defensive move. In Shogi, there is no castling rule, the players will need to move their generals one step at a time to form up defensive formations to protect the king. There is up to 40 different castles with their distinct shapes and names in Shogi. Most commons castles in Shogi are the Mino castle, Yagura Castle, Boat Castle, Bear in the hole Castle and so on.

Mino Castle
Yagura Castle
Boat Castle
Bear in the Hole

#7 Draws and Stalemate

Draws and stalemate are much rarer in Shogi than in chess. Due to the nature of Shogi games that allow captured pieces to come back to the game, there are less draws in Shogi compared to Chess. But if a Shogi position is repeated 4 times with the same player to move and same pieces in hand, the game ends in a draw, or sennichite.

In professional Shogi, sennichite does not result in the end of a game and professional players must restart the game with the sides reversed, until one true winner emerges.

Unlike Chess, there is no tradition of offering a mutual draw by agreement. Perpetual Check is not allowed and results in a loss. Stalemate is virtually impossible unless one side captures all the pieces, and it is a loss for the player who gets stalemated.

#8 Handicap Games

Shogi has a well-developed handicap system for different levels of players whereas Chess does not have a handicap game culture. Handicap games in Chess is much rarer than Shogi and almost never used as an instructive tool.

Handicap games in Shogi is called Koma Ochi, it is widely used in teaching games where professional or stronger shogi players start with less pieces depending on the difference of strengths. The handicap giver is Uwate, while the handicap receiver is Shitate.

How do we decide which handicap to be played?

You may refer to the table here,

For example, If the difference of strengths between both players are 10 ranks or more, the stronger player removes 6 pieces from their starting position. The handicap giver always starts first, except for sente handicap.

Handicap games are actually very beneficial in Shogi, because it bridges the gap of the players and gives the weaker player training wheels to learn how to play Shogi. It also gives the new player a sense of achievement after they have beaten a 10-piece handicap, they can move on to challenge an 8-piece handicap, and so on.

If a new player keeps on playing an even game with a stronger player, they might get disappointed or unmotivated to continue playing, despite the daily practice they have put in.

It is also a good practice for the stronger players as well, they can learn how to use the minor pieces like Silver Generals and Gold Generals effectively.

#9 Rankings and Titles

Next, let us talk about player rankings and different titles and tournaments in both Chess and Shogi world. One of the major international governing bodies for Chess is FIDE, many players from all over the world have FIDE ratings which uses the Elo rating system. Different titles may be awarded to FIDE players that have achieved a minimum rating needed for the title, such as Grandmasters, International Masters, FIDE master and so on.

Amateur players are ranked starting from 15-kyu to 1-kyu and they promote into 1-dan to 7-dan as they go higher in rank. Amateur rankings may fluctuate depending on the dojo they go to or whether it is online rating.

In the Japan Shogi Association, there is a separate system for Shogi Professionals, or Kishi from amateur players, Shogi professionals are ranked from 4-dan to 9-dan. There is also a women's category which is the Women's Shogi Professional or Joryu Kishi which starts from 3-kyu to 6-dan that is separate from regular Shogi professionals.

Shogi does not have a global governing system and do not use the Elo rating system like FIDE. Shogi players rank themselves according to the dan and kyu system like in Karate. Shogi Professional rankings are eternal and they do not fluctuate like Chess elo ratings.

Although Shogi in Japan uses the kyu dan ranking system, it is important to note that the Federation of European Shogi Associations or FESA uses Elo for their official rating system.

The most prestigious tournament in Chess is the FIDE World Championship where the winner of the tournament will be crowned the title of World Champion. Congratulations to Ding Liren for winning the latest World Championship!

In Shogi, there are 8 major title tournaments and several non-title tournaments for Shogi professionals. The two most prestigious titles for Shogi are the Meijin title and the Ryuo Title. Depending on the tournament, the challenger of the title and the title holder must win a certain number of matches from a best of 3 to best of 7 series to decide the new title holder.

As the time of this video, Shogi Professional Fujii Souta 9-dan has won 6 out of the 8 titles under his belt and he set the record of the youngest player in history to obtain 6 titles at the same time.

#10 Time Controls

Lastly, I will talk about the different time controls used in Shogi and Chess. In tournaments, Chess and Shogi games are played with a time control. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, the game is automatically lost. Chess games are usually played with a fixed time together with an increment or none at all, while Shogi has also a fixed time and an additional clock called byoyomi.

Let us say the Shogi tournament has 15 minutes and 60 seconds byoyomi, after the 15 minutes have passed, the byoyomi clock will start counting down immediately. The player will now have 60 seconds to complete a move. After the move has been done, the clock resets to 60 seconds again. Most common byoyomi times are 60 seconds, 30 seconds, and 10 seconds.

Byoyomi in Shogi gives players a decent amount of time to be able to calculate in the endgame, while also providing the players the chance to be able to play the best moves possible for an exciting game.

Do you think chess games should be played with byoyomi? Let me know in the comments below!

So, these are the 10 differences of Shogi and Chess.

If you are a chess player, you should definitely give Shogi a try.

I also made a video about this topic with a better visuals and condensed text, if you like to watch it.
https://youtu.be/csNn0mp5lRw