Swarthmore College has what is believed to be the longest-running college-based shogi club in the country, writes Matt Leon for KYW Newsradio.

Shogi is a unique form of Japanese chess.

There is a king, and the game is still won by checkmating your opponent.

But there the similarities to regular chess end. The board is a 9-by-9 grid instead of 8-by-8.  Also, the pieces are all the same color.

“So if I capture your bishop, it’s now my bishop. And instead of moving on a next move, I can drop the bishop as my own piece. So there’s a kind of recirculation of the pieces,” said Swarthmore philosophy professor Alan Baker.

Baker was introduced to the game in the mid-1990s while visiting Japan.

He and several students started playing shogi on campus back in 2005. They started the Swarthmore College Shogi Club in 2007, and the club has been going strong ever since. 

The club meets weekly and can have anywhere from five to 20 students playing. The number of players may fluctuate, but there’s always a core group of enthusiasts, Baker said.

Learn more about the game of Shogi and learn more about Swarthmore College’s involvement at KYW Newsradio.