Shogi, Go and Chess: The Differences, and Which One to Learn First

Shogi is played on a 9×9 board with 40 pieces. Chess is played on an 8×8 board with 32 pieces. Go is played by placing black and white stones on the 361 points where 19 lines cross 19 lines. All three are two-player games with alternating moves, no luck, and every piece of information visible on the board. Play them, though, and they feel quite different.

If someone told me they wanted to start a strategy board game but could not decide which, I would probably say: pick any one, and pick it first. Still, knowing the differences makes the choice easier. In this post I compare the three games on the skeleton of their rules, then give my view on where to start depending on what you want.

For the rules I used the Japan Shogi Association’s game rules, the Nihon Ki-in’s Japanese Rules of Go (in Japanese), and the FIDE Laws of Chess.

Moving pieces or placing stones

Shogi and chess are games of moving pieces that start lined up on the board. There are several kinds of piece, each with its own way of moving. The first thing you learn is how they move.

Go is a game of placing stones, one at a time, on an empty board. All stones are the same, and a stone never moves once placed. With no moves to memorise, I think go has the shortest rules of the three. The difficulty is elsewhere: there are so many places to play on each turn that, at first, it is hard to see what you are even aiming for.

What happens to captured pieces

I think this is the biggest difference between the three.

In shogi, a piece you capture becomes yours. The JSA rules say that a captured piece becomes your own “piece in hand”, which you can place on any empty square. The number of pieces in play does not shrink toward the end, attacks keep coming from the hand, and comebacks stay possible until the last move.

In chess, a captured piece leaves the board for good. The longer the game goes, the fewer pieces remain, and the endgame becomes a question of how to use very little. That is why the piece values I wrote about in another post matter so much.

In go, you capture by surrounding. A group of stones with no empty points left next to it is removed from the board. Captured stones are not played again; they are used when the result is counted at the end.

How you win

In shogi you win by checkmating the opponent’s king. In chess you win by checkmating the opponent’s king. Both are games about catching a king, and in this they are alike.

Go is different. There is no king. At the end, you compare the territory each side has surrounded, and the larger area wins. Under the Japanese rules, after the game ends you fill your opponent’s territory with the stones you captured and then count the points of territory. You can lose a local fight and still win on the whole board, so it is a game about overall balance more than any single battle.

Whether draws happen

Chess has plenty of draws. Under the FIDE Laws, if the player to move has no legal move and is not in check, it is stalemate, and the game is drawn. Games are also drawn by agreement, by repetition of position, and in positions where neither side can possibly mate.

Shogi has almost no draws. There is “sennichite”, when the same position occurs four times, and “jishogi”, when both kings enter the enemy camp and neither can be mated. Under the JSA rules both normally lead to a replay with colours reversed.

In go, Black plays first and has an advantage, so White receives extra points called komi. Nihon Ki-in tournaments have used a komi of 6.5 points since the autumn of 2002, and the amateur tournaments it organises moved to 6.5 from January 2003 (Nihon Ki-in news, December 2002). Because of the half point, the count can never come out exactly even.

I think this shows in the character of the games. In chess there are positions where not losing is the goal. Shogi and go are played to a decision.

Which one to start with

From here on this is my opinion. The order I would suggest depends on your goal.

If someone around you plays, choose their game. Strategy games are much easier to keep up with an opponent. If someone in your family plays shogi, start with shogi. If someone at work plays go, start with go. I think that is the most reliable way to choose.

If you want to play people anywhere in the world, choose chess. The rules are standardised worldwide by FIDE, so you can play anyone in any country by the same rules.

If you want short rules and to start playing quickly, choose go. Take turns placing stones, capture what you surround, some points are off limits, count territory at the end. That is the whole skeleton. The full 19×19 board is too big for a first game, so starting on a small 9×9 board is a common recommendation. The Nihon Ki-in’s beginner page (in Japanese) also suggests starting on 9×9.

For children, a game whose pieces can be learned one at a time. In shogi and chess, learning each piece’s move is itself part of the fun. For young children who cannot read kanji, chess pieces, told apart by shape, may sometimes be easier to start with than shogi pieces, which are marked with characters.

Whichever you choose, the second game comes more easily than the first. Reading ahead, thinking about what your opponent wants, comparing how much your pieces or stones are doing. These carry over from one game to another.

All three in one app

StudyX Mindsports is an app with 12 strategy games, including shogi, go and chess. Go is played on a 9×9 board, and 11 of the 12 games, all except international draughts, have beginner lessons. When you first open it, it asks which game you want to play. If you do not know the rules, it takes you to the beginner lesson; if you do, it starts a game against the Lv.1 computer. The computer goes from Lv.1 to Lv.50, moving up one level when you win and down one when you lose, so you do not have to pick a strength yourself.

For the purpose of this post, you could try the beginner lessons of all three games in turn and then pick the one you most want to continue. The games and beginner lessons are free, with ads. Each game’s first advanced lesson is free too, and a one-time purchase opens the rest and removes the ads.

If you want to solve tsume shogi every day there is also Shogi365, and for chess mate puzzles there is Chess365. How to use Mindsports is in Getting Started with Mindsports, and a comparison with other apps is in Mindsports vs other apps.