Who Is Shogi365 For?

Shogi365 holds 4,000 tsume shogi puzzles, from mate in 3 to mate in 9. That range covers someone who learned how the pieces move last month and someone who has played at a club for years. Rather than describe an average user who does not exist, here are the specific players I had in mind, and what the app actually does for each of them.

Beginners Learning What Mate Looks Like

Many new shogi players can move the pieces but lose games they should win, because they do not recognize a mate when it is in front of them. Tsume shogi is the traditional fix, and mate in 3 is where it starts.

For a beginner, the useful thing about Shogi365 is that the board enforces the rules. Only checks can be played. Drop pawn mate and double pawns are refused. Forced promotions happen on their own. You do not need to know all the fine print of tsume shogi before you start, because the board will not let you break it. Two-character piece faces (歩兵) and the optional legal move markers help while the pieces are still unfamiliar.

What it does not do is teach shogi from zero. The four-page tutorial explains the puzzle rules, not how each piece moves. If you have never played, learn the moves first, then come here.

Players Who Finished Their First Book

A common path is to work through a book of mate in 3 problems, finish it, and then not quite know what comes next. Another book is the obvious answer, but a book has a fixed number of problems and a fixed order.

Shogi365 has 1,000 puzzles at each length. When mate in 3 feels easy, mate in 5 is there, then 7, then 9. The stats per difficulty, with solved count, best time and average time, show you when you are ready to move up in a way a book cannot.

Club Players Who Lose Won Endgames

Every club has players who build a winning position and then let the king walk away. Often the problem is not strategy. It is reading. They see a check but not the defence to it.

This is where playing it out helps most. In Shogi365, any check can be played and the defender answers the way a real opponent would, resisting while mate is still forced and escaping once it is not. A player who tends to check too early will see the king escape on the board, puzzle after puzzle, until the habit of reading the defence first becomes automatic. Mate in 7 and mate in 9 are the right lengths for this kind of training.

Returning Players

Plenty of people played shogi as children, or in a school club, and stopped. Coming back to a full game can feel like a big step. A single puzzle a day is a small one.

The daily challenge is the same for everyone in the world, and its difficulty is picked from mate in 3, 5 and 7, so it is never overwhelming. Solve it and your streak grows, and the home screen shows your last seven days. For someone reconnecting with the game, I think a few minutes each morning is a better start than an evening of lost games online.

Anyone Who Wants a Daily Puzzle

Shogi365 follows the design of Sudoku365: one puzzle a day, a streak, and a few minutes that fit on a train or before bed. If you already have a daily puzzle habit and want one with a different flavor, tsume shogi is an interesting choice. It is short, self-contained, and in every puzzle the attacker has exactly one right move at each step.

It works offline, so a train in a tunnel or a flight does not break the streak. There is no account to create and no ranking to worry about. Your times stay on your device.

Learners of Japanese Culture

Tsume shogi is a very Japanese thing: a small, strict form with a long history, practiced quietly by a great many people. For someone outside Japan who has taken an interest in shogi, the app is a way to take part in that practice every day. The interface is available in many languages, and the piece faces can be switched between two characters and one, so the kanji become familiar over time.

What It Deliberately Is Not

Shogi365 is not a shogi game against the computer. It does not cover openings or middle game strategy, and it does not replace a teacher or a club. The puzzles are generated and verified by a solver, which guarantees that each one is sound, but they are practical training puzzles rather than the celebrated composed problems found in classic collections. It is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

The app is free with light ads, and a one-time purchase removes them. There is no subscription.

Find Your Starting Point

Whichever of these describes you, the first session is the same: read HOW TO PLAY, start a mate in 3, and play the check you believe in. Our getting started guide walks through it, how it compares with other options sets it next to books and other apps, and our tips cover daily use. All related posts are under the Shogi365 tag.

All 4,000 puzzles are free to play, so the only thing to decide is where to start.