The business year of shogi ended on March 31 as other public organizations and most Japanese companies did. So let's wrap up the year 2011.
As to title matches, there were seven title matches as usual. Five title holders of the seven changed last business year such as Meijin, Oui, Ouza, Osho and Kio. Moriuchi took Meijin from Habu. Habu captured Oui from young Hirose. Watanabe stopped Habu from winning 20 consecutive Ouza holder in 3-0. Sato took Osho from Kubo. Kubo lost Kio against Goda, too. In other words, only two titles were defended by the former holders such as Kisei by Habu and Ryuo by Watanabe. I think the business year 2011 was a very dynamic year in terms of title matches. And the question is what generation is professional players' prime time. Do they have it in their forties? Except for Watanabe, all the title holders are in their forties. Let's keep watching it this business year with interest.
When it comes to other tournaments, Habu's dominance was superb. He won three tournaments such as JT Nihon Series, Asahi Trophy Shogi Open and NHK TV tournaments. He beat Watanabe in the finals of JT and NHK. Watanabe became the winner of Ginga-sen TV tournament. Only exception for newbies was Daiwa Securities Cup for the strongest. A teen player Sugai Tatsuya beat Habu in the first round and became the winner by winning other three knock-out tournament games. Rookie tournaments was won by Sato Amahiko and Kakogawa Seiryu tournament which was competed among 4-dan players and well-performed shoreikai 3-dan players as well as those of female and top amateur players was dominant by Funae Kohei.
As to Juni-sen, Habu became the Meijin challenger with 10-0. Fukaura Koichi comes back to A class and Hashimoto Takanori will be in A class for the first time getting promoted to 8-dan. From B2 to b1, Hirose and Iizuke got promoted. From C1 to B2, Sato Amahiko and Toyoshima Masayuki made progress. and from c2 to C1, three players with perfect peformance of 10-0 such as Abe Kenjiro, Nakamura Taichi and Funae Kohei got promoted. This is first time three promoters got perfect performance. That made Sugai Tatsuya stay in C2 regardless of his excellent score of 9-1 which is expected to pass promotion in an ordinary year.
As to female professional scenes, there are many title holders. Ueda Hatsmi took Queen from Yauchi in the 4th MyNavi Joshi Open. Kai Tomomi defended Joryu Oui beating Shimizu. Satomi kept Joryu Osho beating Ishibashi. A teen shoreikai 1kyu player Kato Momoko became the fist Joryu Ouza. Satomi defended Kurashiki Tohka and Joryu Meijini defeating Shimizu. Shimizu finally became the winner in the 5th Daiwa Securities Cup of strongest woman in the end beating the other finalist Kai.
There are two more topics which may draw your attention in the business year 2011. One is that machine-man matches occurred and the other is that International Shogi Form was held outside Japan for the first time. Retired permanent-Kisei Yonenaga Kunio lost twice against a computer software Bonkras in a pre-match in last December and the official match in last January. And the 5th International Shogi Forum was held in Rueil Malmaison, near Paris in France last October for the first time in shogi history. Six professional players including permanent-meijin-entitled Moriuchi and Habu attended the event together, which is very rare even in Japan.
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