Yagura (castle)
The Yagura castle (矢倉囲い yagura gakoi) is a castle that appears most frequently in Double Static Rook and Double Ranging Rook openings. The basic shape of the Yagura castle consists of a silver on 77 and a gold on 78.
Strategy
Strengths and Weaknesses
In shogi, every castle has strengths and weaknesses, and the Yagura castle is no exception to this rule. Understanding the Yagura's strengths and weaknesses makes it easier to find the best measures and countermeasures to use, playing with or against a Yagura castle.
The Yagura castle is strong at defending attacks against the king's head, and weak against defending attacks from the flank. For this reason, the Yagura castle is well suited for the Double Static Rook and Double Ranging Rook openings in which it most frequently appears. Nevertheless, the Yagura castle can also be used in opposition games. For example, Yasuharu Oyama once successfully employed a Static Rook Yagura castle against Hatasu Ito's Ranging Rook Anaguma castle. [1]
An advantage of the Yagura castle is that the king's position on 88 is covered by the gold on 78 and the silver on 77. Consequently, it is difficult to chase the king out of a Yagura castle with consecutive checks in the endgame. In contrast, the Mino castle does not have this advantage.
The 76 square is a weak point of the Yagura castle. If the silver is attacked with an enemy pawn on 76, the Yagura shape will be broken and not easily repaired.
The edge is a weak point of the Yagura castle. In most variations of the Yagura castle, the edge is defended by only a lance and a knight. For this reason, the Yagura castle is vulnerable to edge attacks.