Tsume Shogi for Chess Players: A Familiar Puzzle, with Three Twists

If you solve 'mate in two' or 'mate in three' chess puzzles, you already understand tsume shogi: from the given position, find the forced sequence that checkmates the king, with every attacking move giving check. The goal and the core skill — reading forcing lines to the very end — are exactly the same. What makes shogi a fresh challenge is a small set of rules that don't exist in chess. Here are the three that matter most for puzzles, and how to solve your first one.

What's the same as chess

The objective is identical: checkmate the opposing king. A tsume problem is a forced mate — the attacker checks on every move, the defender plays the longest-resisting reply, and you read to the finish. Captures and check/checkmate work just as you'd expect. If you like Puzzle Rush or 'mate in N', you'll be solving tsume within minutes. The board is 9×9 and the pieces are flat wedges that point toward the enemy (there's no piece colour — orientation shows whose piece it is), but the puzzle is the same animal.

Twist 1 — drops: captured pieces switch sides

Shogi's signature rule: when you capture a piece it goes into your hand, and on a later turn you may DROP it onto almost any empty square as your move — now fighting for you. For puzzles this is huge: the mating blow often comes not from a board piece but from a piece dropped from hand. Material is never permanently off the board, so attacks are relentless and a quiet-looking position can hide a sudden drop-mate. Reading tsume means considering drops everywhere, not just the moves of pieces already on the board.

Twist 2 — promotion zones, and golds everywhere

Most pieces promote when they move into, within, or out of the last three ranks (the promotion zone), and promoting is usually optional. The minor pieces promote to a gold-like piece, while the rook becomes a 'dragon' (rook plus one-square king moves) and the bishop a 'horse' (bishop plus one-square king moves) — devastating in the tight quarters of a mating net. In tsume the finishing move is often a promotion that suddenly extends a piece's reach. There's no queen; the long-range pieces are the rook and bishop, and the humble gold and silver generals do much of the mating.

Twist 3 — you can't drop a pawn for mate (uchifuzume)

One rule trips up newcomers: you may not deliver checkmate by DROPPING a pawn from hand — this is uchifuzume, and it is illegal. Pushing a board pawn to mate is fine; dropping a pawn to give check (not mate) is fine; only the dropped-pawn checkmate is forbidden. So when 'just drop a pawn in front of the king' looks like mate, it often isn't the answer, and you have to find a legal finish instead. It's a small rule with big consequences for puzzles, and spotting it is part of the fun.

How to start

Try a one-move tsume first: Black to move, find the single checkmating move. Every problem here is verified by a computer solver to have a unique first move and the shortest mate length, so each puzzle has a sound, single intended answer — you never have to wonder whether it is broken. Tap a piece (or a piece in hand), then tap where to move it. From there, work up through three- and five-move problems, and the reading skill you built in chess will carry straight over. Welcome to shogi.