Your honest opinions about Shogi?

Well, it seems that we are dealing with a moderator that abuses his privileges to satisfy a private agenda against Shogi. I doubt whether this thread will survive here for long...

don't like it

It must be a slugfest, since all pawns are isolated for starters. I recall Kasparov once managed to defeat a 4 Dan master using a traditional set.

No, I mean, since they take forward they can't protect each other.

It is indeed a more tactically violent game, but not so much because of the Pawn move but because of the drops. Pawns can be protected by Generals, which protect 3 at the time, which can create as solid a barrier as a Pawn chain in international Chess. Breaking open a Pawn wall by storming it with Pawns is pointless: as soon as you get in range the defender plays PxP, and if you recapture (say with Rook, as you of course did not storm you with an unprotected Pawn), he drops the Pawn he just captured back into the now vacant position, attacking your Rook, and you will have to retreat. Generals cannot approach a closed rank of Pawns without exposing themselves to attack, and Bishops and Rooks are too valuable to sac them (as any material loss counts double).

Write a support ticket if you feel mods have abused their power - I for one can't see why shogi thread needs to be moved from chess variant to off topic of all things.

One great weakness of this site is that we cannot see which moderator took action.

I understand the need for moderators and agree with it, but I cannot understand why it isnt visible which moderator took some action.

Either an action they take is within the guidelines set by the owner of this site, then it's obviously ok and there's no reason why the mods name should not be shown.

Or an action violates the guidelines set by the owner of the site, in this case not being able to see who did what just makes it more difficult to catch the mod abusing his or her powers - so there is no use in hiding the name in this case either.

Seems all those invisible mod actions do is make it harder for supermoderators or whoever supervises them to do their job.

My honest opinion is that it is a better game than chess, objectively speaking. The increased complexity of the mechanics offer more room for strategical planning, and less room for a concrete/computer takeover or a ridiculous buildup of theory. The only problem I have with it is a lack of opponents for us Americans; as far as I know, there's no Shogi club within hundreds of miles of me, and I haven't found a good place to play it online, either.

You don't like 81dojo.com?

^ never found that for some reason, thanks

 I personally feel that Shogi is a better game than chess because of the drops and increased promotions. That said, Chess has a certain simple beauty by how the efficient the other pieces move (e.g. Rooks= Orthogonal, Bishop=Diagonal, Queen=Both: all infinite distance). In Shogi the pieces move almost arbitrarily which removes the purity. Not that it hurts my love of the game, just something from a purely "mechanics-as-art" point of view.

I love Shogi. I actually prefer it over western chess. The game is not hard to learn at all. It's hard to master but not learn. I can only read and write in English but it only took me about 10 minutes to learn the characters on the shogi men. If you like chess and you like anime then you will love shogi. Look on youtube for how to play shogi. On youtube search for "HIDETCH"

https://www.youtube.com/user/HIDETCHI

and you will learn everything that you need to know in order to get started.