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Joel Lautier - on Chess, Shogi and Life
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12 June 2000
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On Shogi
Q: What was your trip to Japan like? How were you received?
JL: I went to Japan together with my wife (Almira Skripchenko-Lautier), and we were received with amazing hospitality. I already knew personally two of the best Shogi players of our time, Yoshiharu Habu and Yasumitsu Sato, from a previous meeting in Paris five years before. They were once again extremely kind and introduced us to the world of professional Shogi, a very rare opportunity for a Westerner.
My command of Japanese is unfortunately very poor (though I'm working on it !), and our Ariadne's thread through this unknown community was a Frenchman, Jacques Pineau. A good chessplayer (around 2250), he has been living in Tokyo for the last twelve years after his marriage to a Japanese woman. Speaking perfect Japanese, he was a precious guide.
Incidentally, he has been the driving force behind the whole event, as the idea of organizing a high-level meeting between chess and Shogi was his brainchild. Moreover, he is the person who acquainted many of the top Shogi players to our game of chess, and thanks to his efforts, quite a few of them have become genuinely interested in our game. If you can get a copy of that article I wrote for Europe Echecs, it should give you a pretty detailed picture of our stay there.
Q: Is the report that Habu beat Almira in a rapid game true?
JL: He indeed won against Almira two offhand games that were played without a clock but both lasted for about half an hour. More than the result, I was dumbfounded by the quality of his play, he played fearlessly for the initiative from the outset and carried the day with two beautiful sacrifices, one of them being a long-term rook sac in a seemingly simple middlegame position. Calculating complicated variations doesn't seem to be any problems for him, and given proper training, I think he could certainly become a Grandmaster.
Q: About how strong in chess do you think the top shogi pros are?
JL: I think Habu plays better chess than his colleagues, and I would estimate his strength at around 2400, which is certainly impressive considering that he's learned chess a few years ago.
As for the others, I can only speak of two players, the ones I met in the simul. Moriuchi has a good sense of the game and Sato also appeared talented, I would rate them between 2200 and 2300, with Moriuchi seeming to know more about chess than Sato.
It's hard to say which level the best chessplayers would reach in Shogi if given some years to learn, but I reckon they'd also make a good impression. I might conduct the experiment myself, if some day I find the time !
Q: Is another trip planned for next year?
JL: There have been talks of staging some similar event next year (that is, already this one !), but so far, nothing definite has emerged.
Q: Was there a great deal of interest in chess over there, or is there as much or more interest in getting westerners/chess players to try their hand at shogi?
JL: The simul I gave was well-covered by the press, so chess had some exposure in the media, but of course, that's a drop of water in an ocean of Shogi! As for attracting Westerners to Shogi, it's pretty obvious that it was the true motivation behind the whole event in the first place, but then again, it will take a long time before Shogi ever makes an impact on Western culture.
It's actually quite surprising to see how Shogi is far more popular than Go in Japan, and at the same time, how every Westerner has at least once come across Go, but very few have heard of Shogi. And when they do, the lazier ones (that means many of them !) probably dismiss it with the thought: "it's just a Japanese variant of chess..."
Q: Do you play shogi?
JL: Yes, I do play Shogi, and I enjoy it immensely. I'm just a beginner yet (maybe 1-dan amateur in my most phenomenal shape), but I liked the game right from the start, especially the idea of dropping pieces near the enemy king: it kind of spices it up, doesn't it ? It reminds me of a chess variant, called I believe "bughouse chess" in English: the one you play two against two, using the pieces your partner takes from his opponent.
The two immediate consequences are very appealing features to a chessplayer: no simplification possible, since no material can be exchanged, and more importantly, a very small percentage of draws.
I also like the notions of "bad shape" and "good shape" applied by professionals to typical configurations of pieces, they underscore the necessity of proper coordination and harmony for success, a concept which, in my opinion, has been neglected in chess, at least in its literature (grandmasters are obviously conscious of it, though often not in a clear didactic form).
Q: What was your impression of shogi and its top players?
JL: The world of Shogi players made a deep impression on me. The well-known FIDE slogan, "Gens Una Sumus", totally meaningless when applied to the petty politics and appalling incompetency of the FIDE bureaucrats, suits the Shogi world perfectly. In a sense, this is not too surprising, since all the real pros come from the same country and were raised by the same Shogi school !
Still, the impeccable way the event was run, the enormous amount of media coverage it obtained, and the courteous relations all the players seem to enjoy with the leadership of the powerful Nihon Shogi Renmei (the Japanese Shogi Federation) all point out to a perfectly well-run organization.
Joel's own detailed report (in French) on his Shogi/Chess trip to Japan, including the games from his simul against Shogi giants Habu, Sato & Moriuchi, can be read here, thanks to kind permission of Europe Echecs.
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