Hi, everyone! Today I'd like to explain a little bit about a fun game. It's called "chess". This game is a lot like shogi (将棋). In fact, many English speakers call shogi "Japanese chess" because the two games are very similar. Here is a chessboard and pieces:
In both chess and shogi, 2 players use a board to move their pieces from one square to another. In each game, the goal is to attack the other player's king and capture it. The player who does this first is the winner. But there are some differences between chess and shogi. In chess, one player has light-colored pieces. That player is called "White". The other player has dark-colored pieces, and is called "Black". Some of the pieces (駒 or コマ in Japanese) have strange movements in chess. For example, the one in this picture here is quite unique:
This is a knight, and it can jump over other pieces! It looks like a horse, doesn't it?? Chess is really popular all over the world, and it has been played for hundreds of years (perhaps even thousands of years). It is considered by many people to be the most famous board game. Today, the world chess champion is named Magnus Carlsen. He is from Norway.
He's a pretty cool guy. Later this year, he will play a World Championship match against a player from Russia. Chess games are exciting when each player has a clock. They must make all their moves before they run out of time, or they will lose. So the players have to move very quickly if they take too much time at the beginning, because then they will be left with only a few seconds to finish the game!!
Haha... So much fun. Let's play chess sometime!!!!
- Peter 
