AI programmes dashing hopes of second-move shogi players

Generations of shogi players have long accepted that moving first in the board game offers an advantage.

But shogi-playing artificial intelligence programmes have shown that gaining that initial edge can lead to sheer dominance.

In the round-robin final league of the 36th World Computer Shogi Championship, the premier tournament for shogi-playing AI programs, first-move AI players had a winning rate of 83.9 percent.

Concerns were raised at the May 3-5 tournament held in Kawasaki that AI could eventually devise a first-move playing strategy that would be impossible to defeat.

“Hisui,” a first-time entrant, emerged from a crowded field of 55 AI programs, to claim the championship.

After the first and second qualifying rounds, eight programs advanced to the round-robin final league.

Hisui and “Ryfamate” finished the league level on five wins apiece, with draws counting as half a win. But Hisui prevailed by the narrowest of margins on a tiebreaker: the combined win totals of the opponents it had defeated.

Hisui was developed by Yuhei Omori, 44, an AI engineer at Heroz Inc., the company known for the online shogi app “Shogi Wars.”

“I never expected to win, so I’m thrilled,” he said.

Shogi, often described as the Japanese form of chess, is a two-player strategy board game in which each side seeks to capture the opponent’s king.

But unlike in chess, shogi players can return captured pieces to the board as their own, a rule that gives the game its distinctive complexity and tactical volatility.


-The Asahi Shimbun