Shogi

Japanese chess. Captured pieces change sides and come back — nothing ever leaves the board.

Shogi将棋

Every difficulty free, no account, no download. Take a piece and it becomes yours — you can drop it back on the board as your own.

Black moves first, up the board. Reaching the far three ranks lets a piece promote. A promoted piece is written in red. Every piece carries its own move on its face — a dot is one step, an arrow slides as far as it likes, and the knight's forked stem is its jump drawn to scale — two forward, then one across, and the only piece that leaps over things. That works for their pieces too, so you can see what is coming at you without a word of Japanese.

your pieces point up theirs point down

The board

Pick an opponent to start.

To move: click your piece, then click one of the marked squares. To drop, click a piece in your rack, then click any empty square it may go to.

Show how each piece moves Shade what they attack 🔊 Sound

What makes shogi different

You win by trapping their king — the 玉/王 marked K. When a king is attacked it is in check: that must be answered immediately, by moving it, blocking the line, or taking the attacker, and you may never make a move that leaves your own king attacked. A check with no answer is checkmate and the game ends there — the king is never actually captured, and neither king ever enters a rack.

Nothing ever leaves the board. Take one of their pieces and it becomes yours, in your rack on the right. On any later turn, instead of moving, you may drop it onto an empty square as your own piece, facing your way — almost any: the three restrictions are in the last card. Their rack works the same against you, so a capture is never just a removal, it is a transfer. A piece you capture always arrives unpromoted, whatever it was when you took it.

Promotion is a choice, for every piece except the king and the golds — those two have no other side. Get any of the rest into the three ranks farthest from you and a move into, out of or inside that band lets you flip it over; you will be asked. The board's four small star dots sit on the two lines where the zones begin — the pair nearer their end bounds yours, the pair nearer you bounds theirs. Promoted pieces are written in red with a +, and their new move is printed on the face like any other. You may decline, except where the piece could never move again.

Reading the pieces

Each piece carries its own move. Where a mark sits on the tile is the direction it goes. Solid means it could go there from this square right now; hollow (or a barred arrow) means the piece does that in general, but not from here this turn.

one square in that direction
the same, but blocked or off the board right now
slides any distance that way
the knight's jump — two forward, then one across. The break in its stem is the leap: it passes over whatever stands between, and the two dots are the only squares it can land on
red promoted
▬ yours ▬ theirs
the enemy reaches here (right) — click any of their pieces to see just that one
◯ you can take this — a red ring appears on their pieces you may capture, once you pick one of yours
the last move — the square it came from and the square it went to
this piece of yours can be taken right now
a bar across an arrow means the very next square that way is shut — it holds one of that piece's own side, or the board ends there. A clear arrow means the next square is free; it does not promise the whole line is

The letters — P pawn, L lance, N knight, S silver, G gold, B bishop, R rook, K king. A + in front means promoted.
The move list reads from-square then to-square, using the numbers along the top and the letters down the side: 7g7f. A trailing + means the piece promoted on that move; * means it was dropped from a rack rather than moved, as in B*4e.

Moves

No moves yet.

The rules that catch people out

Nifu — you may not drop a pawn onto a file where you already have an unpromoted pawn of your own. Their pawns do not count, and a promoted one does not either.
Uchifuzume — you may not deliver checkmate by dropping a pawn. Dropping one to give ordinary check is fine, and so is mating by moving a pawn.
Dead pieces — a pawn or lance on the last rank, or a knight on the last two, could never move again, so it must promote and may not be dropped there.