Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Boardlive today - Kimura Kazuki vs Goda Masataka, 21st Ryuo-sen

Today is the day for the Ryuo-sen game between Kimura Kazuki(8 dan) and Goda Masataka (9 dan). It started at 10:00 am. Kimura became Sente player as a result of Furigoma. The opening strategy is Gote's feint Furibisha(ranging Rook). You can watch and replay the game through either of the pages linked below;

Kifu for Flash | Kifu for Java

The thinking time per player is 5 hours and less than 60 seconds pre move after comsuming it. The game will end in the evening today in Japan. The toppage of Ryuo-sen is linked below. You can see the photo of the players.

21st Ryuo-sen

Shogi tournament schedule in Europe - August & September

Federation of European Shogi Associations(FESA) notified the schedule of the coming shogi tournaments to be held in Europe in this August and September. Rivne Open will be held from August 22 to 24 in Ukraine. 10th Goteborg Open will take place from September 20 to 21 in Sweden. And 14th Calmer Open will be in place from September 27 to 28 in France. For more information, please visit the FESA's page linked below;

European Shogi Calendar

Booze - Open Source software of Shogi, Minishogi and ToriShogi

To my surprize, the veta version of the software called Booze is available to download. It is open source software of shogi, minishogi and torishogi which can run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux/Unix according to the creator's site. If you are interested, you would like to visit the following pages;

Booze 0.9 Beta Released! - DrunkSoft
Download - DrunkSoft

From my point of view after playing a few shogi games, the shogi engine is still very weak and I don't think it can beat Hamshogi. However, since it is opensource, it may be improved in due course.

Board & Photo live of 4th game of 49th Oui-sen

Today and tomorrow are the days for the 4th game of 49th Oui-sen between Oui Fukaura and Challenger Habu. The score was led by Fukaura in 2-1 before the game. The game started at 9:00am in Japan. The venue of the play is at Banshoro(in Japanese) in Nagasaki Prefecture. You can watch and replay the game through the following pages;

Javascript board

Frequently-updated-photo of Fukaura

Photo of Habu

Photo of the latest board

Fukaura is Sente player in thie game. The thinking time per player is 8 hours and less than 60 seconds per move after consuming it. It will end tomorrow evening. And the first day will be posed at 6:00pm when the seald move is made.

Episode 288 of Naruto had shogi scene

Episode 288 of Naruto(Episode 68 of Naruto Shippuuden) aired in Japan last Thursday. There was a shogi scene between Asuma and the third(Sandaime). Naruto Shipuuden is currently airing filler episodes and aprat from Manga story.

Shogi software developed by Purple Software seems available to buy again

Yesterday I found the information in the page linked below;

Shogi (PC) - Softwarestore.com

The product seems to be a Shogi Software which has been developed by Purple Software.

Results of PlayOK(former Kurnik) Official Shogi tournaments held last 3 months

PlayOK(former Kurnik) is an online gamesite where you can play shogi in various time control. Here is the list of the captioned tournaments held there last month. First column is the tournament number, Second is the date. The third is the winner. You can go to the page of the tournament table by clicking each link of tournament number.

2356106 2008-07-30 (wed.) 20:15 --- linwood408
2337258 2008-07-26 (sat.) 14:15 --- linkuei
2337232 2008-07-23 (wed.) 20:15 (cancelled)
2316730 2008-07-19 (sat.) 14:15 --- mugen9x9
2316704 2008-07-16 (wed.) 20:15 --- antyshock
2297633 2008-07-12 (sat.) 14:15 (cancelled)
2297606 2008-07-09 (wed.) 20:15 --- 1opening
2278539 2008-07-05 (sat.) 14:15 (cancelled)
2278511 2008-07-02 (wed.) 20:15 --- kyoshan
2260479 2008-06-28 (sat.) 14:15 --- linkuei
2260451 2008-06-25 (wed.) 20:15 (cancelled)
2243219 2008-06-21 (sat.) 14:15 (cancelled)
2243191 2008-06-18 (wed.) 20:15 --- rex15
2226930 2008-06-14 (sat.) 14:15 --- marchlion
2226902 2008-06-11 (wed.) 20:15 --- rex15
2210913 2008-06-07 (sat.) 14:15 (cancelled)
2210885 2008-06-04 (wed.) 20:15 --- rex15
2192833 2008-05-31 (sat.) 14:15 --- turok
2192805 2008-05-28 (wed.) 20:15 --- rex15
2175842 2008-05-24 (sat.) 14:15 --- marchlion
2175812 2008-05-21 (wed.) 20:15 (cancelled)
2158926 2008-05-17 (sat.) 14:15 --- niccar
2158896 2008-05-14 (wed.) 20:15 (cancelled)
2139974 2008-05-10 (sat.) 14:15 (cancelled)
2139944 2008-05-07 (wed.) 20:15 (cancelled)
2122540 2008-05-03 (sat.) 14:15 --- antyshock

PlayOK shogi official tournaments take place every Wednesday and Saturday. The more detailed schedule of the coming tournaments can be found in the page of upcoming tournaments.

Fukaura won the 3rd game - 49th Oui-sen 4-win match

On July 31 and August 1, the 3rd game of 49th Oui-sen 4-win match between Oui Fukaura and Challenger Yoshiharu Habu took place at in Hyogo Prefecture. Fukaura was Gote player and won the game in 122 moves. After the game, Fukaura leads the score in 2-1. Fukaura found a brilliant mating line in the endgame.

The diagram below is the resignation one when Gote sacrificed Bishop with promotion on 6h.The mating lines after B-6h+ would be as followings;

K-8h L*8f P*8g Lx8g Kx8g P*8f K-8h G*8g(mate)

Kx6h G*6g K-7i S*7h K-8h L*8f K-9g L-8g+(mate)

Kx6h G*6g K-5i S*5h K-4h S-4g+ K-4i G-5h K-3i G-4h K-2h G-3h(mate, Look at the Lance on 1a(!))

Kx6h G*6g K-5i S*5h K-4h S-4g+ K-3i L*3g K-2h L-2h+(mate, replayable by clicking the arrow to the right direction)

In any case, Sente's King would be mated.

Chess variant(incl. shogi) tournament to be held on September 28 in Detroit

According to boardgamegeek, the captioned tounrmanet will be held in Detroit on September 28. If you are further interested in this event, please visit the following page;

Chess Variants "mini con" September 28, Detroit. | BoardGameGeek Forums