Maybe, I learned how to play shogi when I was 2 or 3rd grade of primary school. Since then, shogi was one of my important hobby until I was high school student.
Shogi is Japanese chess like board game. Shogi is computationally more difficult than chess though total number of player is much smaller than chess.
When I went to primary school, professional a shogi player whose name is Yoshiharu Habu was in his strongest time. There is 7 titles in Japanese professional shogi. Until then, taking 5 titles was best record. However, Yoshiharu Habu got all titles for the first time in the history of professional shogi players.
As I noticed that I cannot improve my ability as a shogi player, I do not play shogi so often when I was a high school student. Since then, I do not spend so much time for playing shogi.
Recently, a big events happen in Japanese shogi scene. Official shogi game was held among Ichiyo Shimizu, a Japanese female top shogi player, and the top shogi computer system which consists of 169 clustered(!) workstations.
Top female 'shogi' pro falls to computer
Ichiyo Shimizu lost the game, but it seems that this event attracts interests of shigi to people very much. It also instinct my interests of shogi again.
These days, free-software which is much stronger than top amateur shogi player is available and we are not necessary to find strong players. In addition, if you use internet, you can find a lot of people whose capability is close to you almost every time. This environment is much more convenient than before.
Unfortunately, Japanese shogi is not globalizing. Igo, another popular board game, has large number of fans oversea. On the other hand, shogi does not have such fans oversea. I have heard that shogi is booming in China, but I think they should take activities to increase players oversea.
