Playing against the computer... (Incomplete)

Hello, everyone! I've recently started a shogi game against my computer... I'm not very sure about how well my playing goes, but I've managed to capture the rook. Here is how the game goes (I'm sente, computer is gote):

1.P-2f S-3b 2.S-3h P-3d 3.P-2e B-4d 4.S-2g K-6b 5.G6i-5h K-7b 6.S-6h R-9b 7.K-6i P-1d 8.P-1f P-9d 9.P-9f S-8b 10.K-7i G-7a 11.B-9g R-9c 12.K-8h L-9b 13.S-2f P-3e 14.G4i-5i G-6b 15.G-6i G-6a 16.G-7i G-6b 17.P-6f Bx6f 18.P-1e Px1e 19.Lx1e Lx1e 20.Sx1e L*1a 21.L*1i Lx1e 22.Lx1e P*1c 23.P*1d S*3i 24.R-3h Px1d 25.Lx1d P*1c 26.L*1i Px1d 27.Lx1d P*1c 28.P*1e Px1d 29.Px1d L*2h 30.Rx3i L*1e 31.S*6g B-5e 32.S-5f B-4d 33.S6h-6g L-1h+ 34.B-7e Lx2i+ 35.R-5i N*8d 36.G5h-6h +L2i-2h 37.R-5h +L1h-2i 38.R-4h P-7d 39.B-8f +L2h-3i 40.R-1h +L-4i 41.G-5h +L2i-3i 42.G-6i G-7c 43.P*6f P-6d 44.R-1f +L-3h 45.R-4f +L4i-4h 46.Gx4h +Lx4h 47.G-6h G*3h 48.L*1i G-2h 49.L-1f G-3h 50.P-1c+ Nx1c 51.Lx1c+ Gx3g 52.+L-1b G-3h 53.+L-2b Bx2b 54.N*2g L*1a 55.Nx3e P-4d 56.Nx2c+ Sx2c 57.P*1f N*7e 58.S-7h S-3b 59.S-5e S-3c 60.P-5f P*1h 61.R-2f P-1i+ 62.G-5g +P-1h 63.N-9g Nx9f 64.K-9h +P-2h 65.N-8e Nx8g+ 66.Kx8g P*2g 67.Nx9c+ Lx9c

Anyone has any opinions on the game until now? And specially, where do you think I should place the captured rook?

Hi Sano,
Sorry, I haven't got time to play through your game now , just wondering, what program are you playing against?

Sano wrote:Hello, everyone! I've recently started a shogi game against my computer... I'm not very sure about how well my playing goes, but I've managed to capture the rook. Here is how the game goes (I'm sente, computer is gote):

1.P-2f S-3b 2.S-3h P-3d 3.P-2e B-4d 4.S-2g K-6b 5.G6i-5h K-7b 6.S-6h R-9b 7.K-6i P-1d 8.P-1f P-9d 9.P-9f S-8b 10.K-7i G-7a 11.B-9g R-9c 12.K-8h L-9b 13.S-2f P-3e 14.G4i-5i G-6b 15.G-6i G-6a 16.G-7i G-6b 17.P-6f Bx6f 18.P-1e Px1e 19.Lx1e Lx1e 20.Sx1e L*1a 21.L*1i Lx1e 22.Lx1e P*1c 23.P*1d S*3i 24.R-3h Px1d 25.Lx1d P*1c 26.L*1i Px1d 27.Lx1d P*1c 28.P*1e Px1d 29.Px1d L*2h 30.Rx3i L*1e 31.S*6g B-5e 32.S-5f B-4d 33.S6h-6g L-1h+ 34.B-7e Lx2i+ 35.R-5i N*8d 36.G5h-6h +L2i-2h 37.R-5h +L1h-2i 38.R-4h P-7d 39.B-8f +L2h-3i 40.R-1h +L-4i 41.G-5h +L2i-3i 42.G-6i G-7c 43.P*6f P-6d 44.R-1f +L-3h 45.R-4f +L4i-4h 46.Gx4h +Lx4h 47.G-6h G*3h 48.L*1i G-2h 49.L-1f G-3h 50.P-1c+ Nx1c 51.Lx1c+ Gx3g 52.+L-1b G-3h 53.+L-2b Bx2b 54.N*2g L*1a 55.Nx3e P-4d 56.Nx2c+ Sx2c 57.P*1f N*7e 58.S-7h S-3b 59.S-5e S-3c 60.P-5f P*1h 61.R-2f P-1i+ 62.G-5g +P-1h 63.N-9g Nx9f 64.K-9h +P-2h 65.N-8e Nx8g+ 66.Kx8g P*2g 67.Nx9c+ Lx9c

Anyone has any opinions on the game until now? And specially, where do you think I should place the captured rook?

Hi Sano,

I would in this position not worry very much about where to place the rook. As Gote moves his piece a good spot will appear automatically. A better plan would be to either attack in a different manner (for example the weakness of the pawn on 6d), or to make your king safer, because at the moment a gold or rookdrop on 8h would be very devastating to your position.

Another thing to notice is that alot of the pieces on the board are not doing anything. For example the Silver on 8b is a bad defender, because it blocks the king's escape. The bisshop on 2b also is a bit hammed in, and the same argument could be made for the rook on 2f. (although it has some more attacking potential). The pieces on 2h, 3h and 4h also look a bit silly in this position.

As for the play up untill now.

Until move 9 your position is nice. You have developed the right hand silver and made some threats with your rook. In this position (move 9) you should think about activating your other major piece (bisshop) and also about castling your king (surrounding it by generals to protect it vs opponent's drops). Generally you want to castle the king away from the rook. This makes G6i-5h not a very good move. Putting the other gold there would be a better move.

At move 21 you decide to develop your bisshop. However in this case, it would liberate gote's horribly placed rook, after P-9e. Notice that your king is a bit 'naked' in this position and that it might very well be dangerous if the left flank brakes open.

I hope this will help you

Whits

After 67. Lx9c, Keeping your Rook in hand and activating your Rook on the board would be better. Concretely, Pawn advancement on the 2nd file to 2d(P2e-2d) to aim at the next P-2c+. Then you will be able to take either the Silver on 3c or Bishop on 2b.

Overall, it's good for you to move your King to the opposite side of your Rook and it's guarded by three generals(two Golds and a Silver). After making your King safe, be more offensive will lead you win a game more easily. And remember major piece(Rook and Bishop) promotion is one of the most important ways to beat your opponent.

Here are my suggension to attack your oppoenents more effectively.

After 22. P*1c, Lx1c+ Nx1c+ P*1d, The kNight would have been killed and you could drop it on 8e to kill the Rook on 9c.

After 23.S*3i, R-2f(threatening to take the Bishop on 6f) B-2b Px1c+ Nx1c P*1d P*1b Px1c+ Px1c R-1f, then you can break through the 1st file in the next move of Lx1c+. And you can drop the kNight on 8e to kill the Rook.

26. L*1i, It's not effecitive to drop a Lance on 1i. Instead, just taking the Silver on 3i by Rx3i would have been better.

31.S*6g, It's not ncessary to drop a Silver on 6g. Keeping it in Hand and moving your Gold on 5h to 6g would have been better.

40. R-1h, Very good move to activate your Rook better. But the next 41.G-6h was not inconsistent. Instead of G-6h, P-1c+ would have been better. You should have priotized your Rook promotion on the 1st file here.

43. P*6f, It's too slow and defensive. Instead, you should have advanced your Silver on 5f to 4e threatening to take the Bishop on 4d. If the Bishop escaped somewhere like B-5e, B-3c or B-2b, then you could have promoted your Bishop like Bx5c+ since 42. G-7c was a bad move to reduce the protection on the square of 5c.

53. +L-2b, It seemed a blunder. Instead of that, R-1f would have been better to aim at +L-2b after promoting your Rook on 1c in the next move.

56. Nx2c+, It's not reasonable to sacrifice the kNight here. Instead, Silver advancement from 5f to 5e to take the Pawn on 4d would have been good. After Sx4d, your kNight can be promoted to 4c(N-4c+) to trade it for a Silver.

60. P-5f, It's too slow. Instead, Sacrificing Pawn advancement of P-2d would have been better. If it's taken by Sx2d, then you can take the pawn on 4d like Sx4d aiming at the next flashing moves such as S-3c=(!) Bx3c Rx4a+ Activating your Rook should have been priotized here as well.

Please remember, taking care so that your major pieces(R & B) can work better will improve your opening and middlegame.

Here is the result of anlyze from Bonanza V3.0 for your game:



You was very close to loose the game, but in the last few moves you come back to an even game.

Throughout this game it seems as though you don't have an overall plan for what you're going to do. This can certainly be seen in the number of moves - 134 is an impressive number of moves for a game with no immediate mate in sight.

21. B-9g: This is generally thought to be a poor move for two reasons: 1) It cuts off your lance's protection to the 9th file pawn, 2) It opens yourself up for an edge attack against your bishop's head. In addition, it limits the squares your bishop can move to, and is quite easily blocked, as your computer has done.

23. K-8h: This move cuts off your bishop's escape route. If your opponent were to launch a consistent edge attack, your bishop would be killed quite easily.

31. G-7i: Your castle has one major flaw: No protection to the king's head! Your castle assumes an attack against your right side, yet your opponent's rook is aiming at your castle's left side. You should move your generals to defend the issue point.

57. Px1d: This whole series of moves, starting with 35. P-1e, does nothing for you. All you accomplished was handing your opponent your silver and both lances for a couple pawns. The idea was good - often, breaking the edge leads to a successful attack. However, you didn't have nearly enough power to break the edge. There's a shogi proverb, "Attack with the Rook, the Bishop, the Silver, and the Knight." You should pile up all of your attackers against one area. This way, no amount of defense will stop at least one of your pieces from promotion.

91. Gx4h: This wasn't a good exchange for you. You should have let your opponent make the first attack, especially considering your gold is undefended here. You should initiate a material exchange only when you can reap the benefits of the exchange. Here, you gave up the gold for a lance. Instead, you could have waited for your opponent to attack the gold, and then exchange it for TWO lances.

95. L*1i: This move does nothing for you. The edge isn't in issue - we've seen from the previous attack that your opponent has control of the edge. You need to make attacks against the King.

107. N*2g: You shouldn't waste a drop to try to capture a pawn. Simply floating the rook up a rank to attack would have been sufficient. A better drop would have been N*8e, which kills the opponent's rook.

And specially, where do you think I should place the captured rook?

Don't! A rook in hand is more valuable than a rook on the board! In addition, there's no useful place in your opponent's camp to drop your rook. Try to break his defenses apart first. When there's a wide open area in his camp, THEN drop the rook.