How to Read Tsume Shogi Solutions: ▲△, 同, 打, 成 and 不成
Hiroki Obara · Developer
You buy a tsume shogi book, think about a problem, and turn to the answer page. There you find something like “▲5二金打 △同玉”, and you cannot follow which piece went where. Most tsume shogi books, and many problems shared online, are written only in Japanese notation, so this happens to almost everyone who learns shogi outside Japan.
The notation is the same one used for full shogi game records, and there are not many rules. In this post I go through what you need to read tsume shogi answers, in the order the symbols appear. For each one I also give the Western notation used in English shogi books and sites, so you can match the two. The summary of the Western system here follows the English Wikipedia article Shogi notation.
Square names: files and ranks
The board has 9 files and 9 ranks. A square is named by its file and rank.
- File (筋, suji): the columns. Seen from Black, the player who moves first, the rightmost file is 1 and the leftmost is 9. Files are written in Arabic numerals
- Rank (段, dan): the rows. Seen from Black, the far edge is rank 一 (1) and the near edge is rank 九 (9). Ranks are written in kanji numerals
So 5二 is file 5, rank 2. Japanese notation uses two kinds of numerals so that file and rank are never mixed up. The kanji numerals you need are 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九, for 1 to 9.
In Western notation, the rank is a letter instead: a for 一, b for 二, and so on to i for 九. 5二 becomes 5b, and 2三 becomes 2c.
In tsume shogi, the defending king is usually near the top of the board, around ranks 一 to 三. You will see a lot of small numbers like 1二 and 2一 in answers, because the king is often driven into the top right corner as seen from the attacker.
Counting files from the right is, I think, the easiest thing to get wrong. If you count from the left, file 5 still comes out right, and every other move is mirrored.
▲ and △
▲ marks a move by the first player, called Black (sente), and △ a move by the second player, White (gote). In tsume shogi, the attacker who gives mate is ▲ and the defender is △. Some books leave the marks out and write “5二金、同玉”. Then the odd-numbered moves are the attacker’s and the even-numbered ones are the defender’s. You may also see ☗ and ☖, piece-shaped versions of the same marks.
Piece names
After the square comes the piece that moved, usually in one kanji.
| Kanji | Piece | Western letter |
|---|---|---|
| 歩 | pawn | P |
| 香 | lance | L |
| 桂 | knight | N |
| 銀 | silver | S |
| 金 | gold | G |
| 角 | bishop | B |
| 飛 | rook | R |
| 玉 / 王 | king | K |
| と | promoted pawn | +P |
| 成香 | promoted lance | +L |
| 成桂 | promoted knight | +N |
| 成銀 | promoted silver | +S |
| 馬 | horse (promoted bishop) | +B |
| 龍 / 竜 | dragon (promoted rook) | +R |
“▲5二金” means the attacker moved, or dropped, a gold to 5二.
同: the same square as the last move
同 (dō) means the piece moved to the same square as the previous move. “▲5二銀 △同玉” means the attacker moved a silver to 5二, and the defending king then moved to 5二, which means it captured the silver.
The only reason to move onto the square of the last move is to capture what is there, so you can read 同 as a capture. Because 同 replaces the square name, “△同玉” alone does not tell you where it happened. Check the square of the previous move first.
Western notation has no 同. It writes the square again with x for capture: Kx5b.
打: a drop from hand
打 (uchi) marks a drop: a piece from hand placed on the board. I think this is the most confusing part of tsume shogi answers.
打 is not always written. The usual rule is to add 打 only when a piece of the same type already on the board could also move to that square, so the two need to be told apart. If no piece on the board can reach the square, 打 is left out, even for a drop.
For example, with the defending king on 5一, the attacker’s pawn on 5三 and a gold in hand, dropping the gold on 5二 is mate. This is the “gold on the head” shape from Basic Checkmate Shapes in Shogi. No attacking gold on the board can move to 5二, so the answer is written “▲5二金まで1手詰” with no 打.
So if an answer says “▲5二金” and you cannot find a gold on the board that can move to 5二, it was a drop. If you assume that no 打 means a piece on the board, you will spend a long time looking for it.
In Western notation a drop is always marked, with an asterisk: G*5b. A normal move uses a hyphen, as in G-5b.
成 and 不成: promotion
When a piece moves into, within or out of the promotion zone, the notation shows whether it promoted.
- 成 (nari): it promoted. “▲2三銀成” means the silver moved to 2三 and became a promoted silver
- 不成 (narazu): it could promote but did not. “▲2三銀不成”
If promotion was not possible, nothing is added. Older books sometimes write 生 instead of 不成.
In Western notation, promotion is a + after the move and declining is an =: S-2c+ and S-2c=.
In tsume shogi, 不成 is often the key to the answer. A silver loses its diagonal backward moves when it promotes, and moving a bishop or rook without promoting can sometimes keep a later pawn drop from being an illegal pawn-drop mate. When you see 不成 in an answer, asking why the piece did not promote usually shows you what the problem is about. The pawn-drop mate rule is in The Finer Rules of Tsume Shogi.
上, 引, 寄, 直, 右, 左: which piece moved
When two or more pieces of the same type can move to the same square, a character is added to say which one moved. This is not common in tsume shogi answers, but it helps to know.
- 上 (agaru): moved forward
- 引 (hiku): moved backward
- 寄 (yoru): moved sideways
- 直 (sugu): moved straight forward (used for golds, silvers and similar pieces)
- 右 / 左 (migi / hidari): the piece on the right or on the left, as seen by the player moving it
Say Black has golds on 6九 and 4九, and both can move to 5八. From Black’s side, the gold on 4九 is on the right, so if it moves the move is “5八金右”, and if the gold on 6九 moves it is “5八金左”. If the golds are on 5九 and 4八 instead, the one on 5九 moves forward, “5八金上”, and the one on 4八 moves sideways, “5八金寄”.
Direction is always from the point of view of the player moving the piece, so for White’s pieces it is reversed.
Western notation solves the same problem by adding the starting square only when needed, for example G4i-5h.
まで: the end of the solution
At the end of an answer you will see something like “まで3手詰”, “mate in 3 moves up to here”. まで is sometimes written in kanji as 迄. In shogi both sides’ moves are counted, so a 3-move tsume is two attacker moves and one defender move. In chess terms, that is mate in 2.
Some books add 変化 (henka), variations showing how to mate when the defender answers differently. I think reading the variations as well as the main line makes it much clearer why the main line is what it is.
An order for reading answers
When reading an answer, I suggest this order.
- Set up the problem on a board, or copy it onto paper
- Play one move at a time, checking the square and the piece. For 同, look at the previous move’s square. Even without 打, consider that it may be a drop
- Look at the final position and check why it is mate
If you read answers only in your head, you lose track of the pieces by the second or third move. Setting them up as you read is, in the end, the fastest way.
How the pieces move is in How Shogi Pieces Move, and how to approach tsume shogi is in Tsume Shogi for Beginners.
How Shogi365 shows the moves
Shogi365 is a tsume shogi app with 1,000 puzzles each of 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-move tsume. Any check can be played, right or wrong, and the defender replies automatically. The moves you play are listed next to the board in Japanese notation, in the same form as this post, such as ▲５二金, △同玉 and ▲２二角成. This is the case in every language version of the app, so solving puzzles is also a way to get used to reading the notation. After solving, Review lets you step back and forward through the line one move at a time.
