Ham Shogi is helpful in that it allows any kind of handicap, for itself or the player, from none at all to king only.
When first playing it, I thought "Meh, king only seems for losers, and king and pawns only is only slightly better". So I decided to settle for the third highest handicap, which is king and pawns plus rook and bishop, figuring it would of course be relatively easy, removing all silver and gold generals, as well as lances and knights.
And believe it or not, I got crushed once again. I played 5 games against the hamster, and 4 of them were a complete waste. Most of the time, his bishop would enter my camp and get a free meal on pretty much everything that was floating around. By the time I could stop it, the hamster would've got a ton of pieces he could drop into my camp and/or simply checkmate my king. Huh.
The fifth game, however, was less of a waste of my CPU time. I decided to focus on defending instead of simply moving pieces around. The game lasted an impressive 35 to 40 moves. The hamster found a way to checkmate my King once again, but at least I could tell it needed to try hard. I would post the resulting kifu, but of course I ended up closing the tab before I could write it down. Oh well.
I understand that Ham Shogi is a nice match for beginners, so unless playing AIs is as bad an idea in shogi as it is in go, I think I'll try to get a bite of the hamster before going back online.
Playing AI isn't so bad for beginners in shogi as it is in igo. Since igo is a game where you have to apply abstract principles of territory, it's very hard to program a computer that's pretty weak but still follows basic igo principles. In shogi, however, since there is a more limited number of moves, it's easier to make an adequate AI. So if you're playing against an AI like Hamshogi that applies basic principles, then I believe it's very good for training. I know Takodori-san recommends that players should be able to beat Hamshogi before you become serious in playing other people.
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