Hello, everyone. My name is Takashi Araki, and I am an instructor of i-tsu-tsu Shogi class, Kobe Motomachi.

Two new courses, “Ni-course” and “Ho-course” were added to the “Hajimete no Shogi Kyoshitsu” from this July. These courses are designed to help beginner players smoothly move up to intermediate players. If you know what tactics are, but don’t know how to go from there… this is perfect for you.

I would like to share the contents and style of our lessons.

After completing your piece-building, move Gin (Silver) forward.

During an opening game, you have to have a process called “piece-building”. To be more specific, this can be described as (1) deciding what strategy you will use, (2) building a castle, and (3) creating an offensive style. These three processes are called “piece-building“. By the way, the ideal piece building is described in detail in “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners Vol.3”. Please take a look at it if you are interested.

However, here’s the problem. Even if you completed a great piece formation, you may be totally puzzled if you don’t know what you’re going to do from there. I sometimes find some students in this way at Nobi Nobi class, in Motomach school.

That’s what this lecture is all about! In fact, once you build a piece-formation, there is only one thing to do. Move Gin (Silver) forward, that’s it. The trick is to aim for the third rank of the enemy’s camp and keep advancing Gin (Silver) to gain the advantage.

Of course, things don’t go so easily because the opponent is on the defensive as well. However, Awase no Fu, or the “Opposing Fu (Pawn)”, is useful in such cases. The theory of Shogi is that when two pieces of Fu (Pawn) collide, you take the piece. Using the law, you can advance your Gin (Silver). In particular, if you are able to perform the “Opposing Fu (Pawn)” as shown in the picture, your offensive skills will improve and you will be able to play Shogi with a different perspective.

For those students who attended this lesson, today was the first time they learned the word “opposing Fu (Pawn)”. But by the end of the lecture, they seem to have gotten the hang of it to move Gin (Silver) toward the enemy camp like it’s flowing. I hope they keep up the good work!

*By popular demand, we will offer an additional Kobe Motomachi Class, “First Time Shogi Class”, only during the summer (from July to September).

If you are interested, click here. (Please note that this information is in Japanese only.)