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BY MATT BLEIMAN

In print | April 17, 2008

Professor Alan Baker, founder of the Swarthmore shogi club, recently won the U.S. national shogi championship. He has been playing shogi for over ten years and has been spreading word of the game to Swarthmore students.

“I would say broadly it is a more aggressive game than chess and it is a more complicated game at chess,” Baker said. He explained that computers are not as good at shogi yet compared to chess because of all the additional possible moves. The complexities of the game have made it difficult to master. Baker said, “In high level shogi, like shogi that gets played in Japan, even professional players make a lot of mistakes so games are often unpredictable.”

There is a small but active shogi community in the United States made up mainly of Japanese ex-patriates, according to Baker. In Japan, about 20 million people at least know the rules of shogi or follow it in some form. There have been attempts to spread the game from the west but it is still mostly popular in Japan. “I think the main barrier is that it looks kind of forbidding. Even now I don’t know the meanings of the characters so I just had to memorize them,” Baker said.

Baker said he started learning to play shogi when he went to Japan in 1995 and picked up a pocket set. He does not have much opportunity to play in the states and gets most of his playtime on a Japanese website where he can play real time against other shogi players. He also occasionally plays in tournaments and started the shogi club at Swarthmore college.

There is an annual U.S. championship open not just to U.S. citizens but anyone who wants to play. This year, there were 32 players in the tournament. Baker said that about three-fourths of the players were Japanese and most of the others were former chess players. Baker won the championship this year after being ranked 14th out of the 32 players. “It was something of an upset. There were no players who were incredibly stronger than me but I certainly was not the favorite,” said Baker. “Last year I was out of the country but two years ago I played and came fourth which I was happy with.”

The tournament is a knock-out tournament, and there are no seeds so there is also a bit of luck involved. The tournament hosted five shogi professionals from the Japanese shogi organization who offered analysis of games, gave commentary and offered tips.

Baker was initially attracted to the game because he never heard of the game and it was similar to chess so he got his first set to see what it was. “I have now gotten to the same strength at shogi that I am at chess and I think shogi is a better game because you get a broader range of positions in shogi. I think there is more room for improvisation of the board, and there is a feeling that you can often get back into a game by playing some good moves,” said Baker. He said that nearly all chess players who learn shogi prefer shogi to chess. “There is a feeling among chess players who have been exposed to shogi that shogi is an objectively better game,” he said.

The club at Swarthmore was started three years ago by Baker, who used to bring shogi boards to the chess club when he went. “It has waxed and waned in terms of participations and it also depends on the time of the semester but we have weekly meetings and an e-mail list,” said Baker. “On a good week we will have ten or 12 and I think since the club has started 30 or 40 people have learned to play and about a dozen have done it consistently.”

George Yin ’09 discovered shogi when Professor Baker brought the game to chess club. He then started the shogi club with Baker when he was a freshman. Students at Columbia University are also trying to start a shogi club. There are hopes that Swarthmore and Columbia can work together to make a shogi club. “If we can get more people in the club and maybe get the club chartered, we can actually become the first inter-collegiate shogi club in the U.S. So we are trying to work harder this semester to get the club stronger so this is a possibility,” said Yin.

Club participation has been lower this semester because many of the core members who are juniors have gone abroad. Still, Yin is optimistic because freshman have begun to show up. He said that the weekly meeting normally has four to five people right now. The club is looking for more members so that next year it can start working with students at Columbia and organize a tournament.

Baker will teach new attendees the rules and then begin to play. The game can be played with a handicap where certain pieces can be removed to level the playing field. “As the person you are teaching gets stronger, once they win three games you will add back pieces,” said Baker. Because of the nature of shogi, the handicap does not inhibit the better player from winning but instead can better even the match. The handicap system allows players of different skill levels to play together in the club.

Chess Club President Jonathan Estey ‘08 has been attending the shogi club when he can. He said that it is interesting for him because unlike chess, there are very few draws, there is no real advantage to a side (black or white in chess), and there are no specific openings that can be played out by memory. "I think it is really interesting. I’m still learning and I am a lot better at chess. You have to learn more pieces than chess but the written pieces aren’t as off-putting as I expected," said Estey.

He said that the game is hard to learn compared to chess because of the lack of its presence in our culture. “I think if you took out the culture part they are just as complicated as each other,” said Estey. “Also, because the pieces are short ranged, there is a lot more strategic planning so there is a much more frustrating learning curve.”

An aspect that Baker likes about shogi is that there are fewer people who play shogi so the community is much closer. Because of this, it is easier for players to get exposure at higher level tournaments. Baker’s win at the national tournament has given him the opportunity to travel to Japan to represent the U.S. team.

Estey sees the lack of shogi players as an impediment to playing the game. “I plan to learn to be decent at shogi. It’s harder because there are few people to play with. Still, he does not believe the language is a big barrier to learning shogi. I would say the biggest barrier is finding people to play with,” Estey said. “You can go to chess tournaments in the United States, to do anything like that with shogi you have to go to Japan.”

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