In shogi, captured pieces switch sides and come back to fight
Take an opponent's piece in Western chess and it is gone for good. In shogi, Japanese chess, you keep it in hand and can drop it back onto the board as your own. That single rule, possibly inspired by mercenary samurai changing sides, makes the game wildly more complex and almost never ends in a draw.
Shogi belongs to the same family as chess, xiangqi and janggi, all descended from chaturanga, which arose in India in the 6th century. The game probably reached Japan through China or Korea after the Nara period. An ancestor without drops appears in a document from 1210, and the modern form was being played by the 15th century, when the drop rule is thought to have appeared.
Play takes place on a plain grid of nine by nine squares, 81 in all, and each side has 20 flat, wedge-shaped pieces. Both sets look identical apart from the kings; ownership is shown only by which way the pointed end faces. Each piece bears two kanji, and bigger pieces are more powerful. Promotion happens in the far three ranks, where a piece is flipped over to reveal a new character, often in red. A pawn promotes into a tokin, and players decide who moves first by tossing five pawns and counting how many land promoted side up.
Most pieces move only one square. The gold general steps to six neighbouring squares but not diagonally backward; the silver has five options; the knight leaps forward only, never sideways or back. The rook, bishop and lance slide across the board, the lance only forwards. Players snap each piece down with their fingertips, a crisp sound meant to catch the opponent's attention.
Because captured material keeps returning, shogi's game tree is far larger than chess's, and draws occur in only 2 to 3% of professional games, against over 50% in international chess. Some sets swap the kanji for Western symbols or movement diagrams to help newcomers, though most learners soon read the characters.
Source: Shogi
