Welcome International Ladder Climbers! We are pleased to announce the 19th Weekly Shogi Ladder on Lishogi. Registration will conclude next week Thursday at 23:59 UTC. The Ladder will commence on Friday at 22:00 UTC and conclude the following Sunday at 23:59 UTC. (2026-14-08 23:59~ 2026-10/24 23:59 ) We hope you'll be able to join us for our weekly sparring session! What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you. How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given week sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Thursday 23:59 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder. You'll have a week to schedule and play games with your opponents. How is it going? The Lishogi club now enjoys 79 members! The club welcomes players at all levels. Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you.

How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given weekend sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Friday 23:30 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder.

How is it going? The 81Dojo club now enjoys 775 members from over 35 different countries! New players continue to join each week; the club welcomes players at all levels.

Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

Hello everyone. A few weeks ago, I posted about making a shogi game in Pascal so that I could play/run shogi on my Amstrad PPC 512. Posted a link to the github, writeup on my website, so on and so forth. Since then my 8-sun Shogi board with side stands came in from ebay, I now own two shogi piece sets, I participate in the weekly shogi ladder on 81dojo, and have made further progress on the shogi game. It has been polished, updated, and with my increased knowledge of the game allows the player a better competitive feeling expirence.

Thats where I come to a crossroads. Additionally, over the past few weeks, there have been a few posters that have been showcasing crappy AI shogi websites with little to no privacy policies and large lack of awareness on what is already out there and why they dont need to reinvent the wheel with slop. I am reluctant to post about the newest update without being blasted or being lumped in with the slop.

I am not making the next 81dojo or Lishogi app. I do not want you to sign in with your google account and be cheap bugtesters for my LLM. I am making a project about a game I have really been enjoying in a coding language that hasnt been done to death that can be run on hardware from before the internet even existed as well as modern hardware. If techy people review it and have contributions, awesome. If the average joe plays it and enjoys it, amazing. My main thing is I dont want me showing off a project coming off as just another AI slop post we have been seeing. Thank you for your time on reading my rant.

TL,DR;

I have an update on a game I have been working on but hesitant on posting links in case I am lumped in with the AI website slop posts.

Hello Shogi Community. I have attempted to teach my ai to learn Shogi and be a great challenge to new and experienced players. I have launched my Masters 20 Challenge. 20 bots with increasing difficulty and strategies and openings (i hope). Gain rewards for defeating them. I have tried teaching the ai through many official Shogi Books as well as reviewing 64000 professional games. I would love to hear if anyone can defeat all 20 and if they actually play well throughout. Any feedback is appreciated Play at ShogiGO.net

I'm a beginner, and I already know the basic rules. I also know how to build a Mino Castle. I've played a few games on Shogi Wars and won quite a lot of them, but I've lost every game I've played on 81Dojo. I really want to improve, but I don't know where to start or how to practice effectively. Can anyone help me out?

Basically the title.

I was just convinced to play shogi by the family of my girlfriend.
Long story short I got dunked on by the father (0-3) then the mother (0-3) and then the grandfather (0-6).
And her grandmother with dementia would have probably also beat me if she wouldn’t have been asleep at the time…

I don’t mind losing but I am a kinda competitive person and since we are visiting them like once a month I would like to at least be able to put up a fight next time.
But it felt like completely unbelievable difficult to attack successfully? I mean I was constantly being attacked successfully but when I tried to go on the offensive I usually lost within the next 2-3 turns.

In the car I just searched some guides but they all seem to teach like typical openings etc.
do I have to remember all of that to become at least better at the game?
Or are there some general principles for “how to think” for this game?
When they explained to me why I lost it seemed to me as if they are seeing the game state totally different.

(I have never even played chess in my life so I am a complete beginner)

I tried everything and nothing seems to work, I even tried a tsume solver but nothing

This is a screenshot from a game I played this morning, that I believe would make for an interesting checkmate puzzle as well as glimpse of low elo shogi in general.

Looking for beta testers for ShogiGO — a new Shogi app + website

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a new Shogi project called ShogiGO, and I've just opened the Android app and Website for beta testing.

I'm looking for some actual Shogi and Chess players who would be willing to try it out, play some games, break things, and give me honest feedback before I release it publicly.

🌐 You can check out the project here:

ShogiGO.net

The goal with ShogiGO is to make Shogi approachable to new players while still building something that experienced players will enjoy. It uses a modern interface with Western-style pieces by default, with traditional Kanji pieces available as an option.

The project includes online play, matchmaking, player accounts/ratings, multiple time controls, bots, and cross-play between the Android app and browser. I'm actively developing and improving it, so beta feedback right now can actually influence what the final product becomes.

What I'm looking for:

- Android beta testers

- Experienced Shogi players who can catch rule/strategy issues

- Newer players who can tell me what's confusing

- People willing to test online games and matchmaking

- Bug reports, UI feedback, and feature suggestions

The beta is free. I'm not trying to sell anything here — I genuinely need people to play it and tell me what works and what doesn't.

If you'd like to help test the Android version, comment here or send me a DM and I'll get you into the closed beta.

And even if you don't want to beta test, I'd love to hear what you think after checking out ShogiGO.net.

Thanks! 🏯♟️

What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you.

How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given weekend sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Friday 23:30 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder.

How is it going? The 81Dojo club now enjoys 774 members from over 35 different countries! New players continue to join each week; the club welcomes players at all levels.

Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

I'm the developer of Shogi Lab, a shogi app for iOS built on the Sunfish4 engine. It has offline CPU games with adjustable strength, and you can review your games in the same app.

I'm a one-person developer, so I don't make big changes, just small improvements bit by bit. Some of the features:

- Real-time evaluation values and graph during games

- Thinking time shown on the move list (long thinks highlighted)

- Key move detection that highlights moves where the evaluation changes a lot

- KIF / CSA import for replay and analysis

If you have any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6757245157

Welcome International Ladder Climbers! We are pleased to announce the 18th Weekly Shogi Ladder on Lishogi. Registration will conclude next week Thursday at 23:59 UTC. The Ladder will commence on Friday at 22:00 UTC and conclude the following Sunday at 23:59 UTC. (2026-10-08 23:59~ 2026-10-17 23:59 ) We hope you'll be able to join us for our weekly sparring session! What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you. How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given week sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Thursday 23:59 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder. You'll have a week to schedule and play games with your opponents. How is it going? The Lishogi club now enjoys 76 members! The club welcomes players at all levels. Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

Hey everyone I’m new to the area I’m looking to start a local Shogi club ☺️ I love playing on lishogi but an actual board is irreplaceable to me I have a few boards! I saw there was a baduk club here so I really wanted to try for Shogi

In chess for example, the bishop pins the knight, pieces occupy queenside weaknesses to prevent the opponent from developing properly.

And in Chinese chess the chariots cross the river to tie down enemy pieces by pressuring them, attacking the horses and stopping them from getting into the game. Cannons try to hit horses from afar

In Shogi is there anything similar where both sides affect each other's development in the opening, or are all pieces free to develop into their perfect and ideal positions before the real battle starts?

Hello everyone. I am a solo developer and I have been working on a shogi app called Shogi Castle for a while now and today I can finally release both on ios and android.

The reason I made this app was because I enjoy playing shogi and solving puzzles on my phone and I wanted to make an app with a simple and modern ui and where it is not as heavily monetized. It has ads though I tried to keep them light. Otherwise all features are free.

It has guides and interactive builders, lessons, rated online games with both blitz and normal time modes, friend rooms and offline bot play. And for bots I worked really hard on a custom engine I call Mino AI.

I am very excited to see this engine in action. In chess there are engines that act like a human. For example Maia. So not a strong engine dumbed down but trained on human games to act like a real human. I called it the Mino AI and I want to give credit and thank lishogi for allowing me to use public games from their database.

I am open to all feedback and suggestions. Especially on the engine at different levels and if it really plays naturally like a human. I really want to improve on that and if successful write a detailed post on that alone.

I also created a website for it that includes all kinds of guides and lessons and a daily tsume.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shogi-castle-japanese-chess/id6815237688

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shogicastle.game

Website: https://shogicastle.com/

So, I’m teaching my friends and family on how to play shogi, and I’m making a paragraph, any illegal moves and cool tactics that I should know of??

What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you.

How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given weekend sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Friday 23:30 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder.

How is it going? The 81Dojo club now enjoys 772 members from over 35 different countries! New players continue to join each week; the club welcomes players at all levels.

Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

Welcome International Ladder Climbers! We are pleased to announce the 17th Weekly Shogi Ladder on Lishogi. Registration will conclude next week Thursday at 23:59 UTC. The Ladder will commence on Friday at 22:00 UTC and conclude the following Sunday at 23:59 UTC. (2026-10-01 23:59~ 2026-10-10 23:59 ) We hope you'll be able to join us for our weekly sparring session! What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you. How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given week sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Thursday 23:59 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder. You'll have a week to schedule and play games with your opponents. How is it going? The Lishogi club now enjoys 75 members! The club welcomes players at all levels. Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

I'm kinda proud of it, I usually suck at this kind of game. Time to see if I can actually wrap my head around any real strategies...

Welcome International Ladder Climbers! We are pleased to announce the 16th Weekly Shogi Ladder on Lishogi. Registration will conclude next week Thursday at 23:59 UTC. The Ladder will commence on Friday at 22:00 UTC and conclude the following Sunday at 23:59 UTC. (2026-09-25 23:59~ 2026-10-3 23:59 ) We hope you'll be able to join us for our weekly sparring session! What is Shogi Ladder? A teaching ladder is a system where you learn together with an opponent one rank above you and an opponent one rank below you. How does it work? If you choose to participate in a given week sign up for the weekly ladder (sign-up closes Thursday 23:59 UTC). You will play two even rated games, and will analyze them together with your opponent afterward. This post-game analysis is key, it is the teaching/learning part of the teaching ladder. You'll have a week to schedule and play games with your opponents. How is it going? The Lishogi club now enjoys 72 members! The club welcomes players at all levels. Come join us! We are a community of friendly players who are serious about improving and enthusiastic about learning. What makes the teaching ladder unique is that everyone in the ladder is committed to post-game analysis in a welcoming and constructive atmosphere--it is not a tournament, but a learning tool! If you have the time to play a couple of games this week( until next Friday UTC) please consider signing up!

I have been working on, and now completed, a Shogi program that not only works on anyone's computer, but also on computers created before the internet was invented! It is written in Pascal and originally made to be backwards compatible with the Amstrad PPC 512. Please give it a look and tell me what you think.

link to the game on Github

Link to my website post describing development

I recently added a Community Puzzle Gallery to Gunshi Shogi, my Shogi variant with an original piece called the Strategist.

We’ve already received a great community submission, which I selected as a Featured Puzzle.

Because the Strategist gives nearby allied pieces special movement buffs, you can create mating patterns that don’t normally exist in regular Shogi.

Here’s a simple mate-in-1 example to try:

https://gunshi.nikatoma.fun/index.html?lang=en&gspos=2.X6_X6GX6_X6_X6_X6_X6_X6_X4MIBAIBAIBAIASCJAIBAHZAIBAA.1d678a55&gsmate=1

And here is the Community Puzzle Gallery:

https://gunshi.nikatoma.fun/gallery/index.html?lang=en