Today is the day for the first game of the first Ricoh Cup Joryu Ouza-sen between Joryu 6-dan Shimizu Ichiyo and Shoreikai 1kyu Kato Momoko. Joryu Ouza-sen is the first tournament which is open not only to lady professionals but also to female shoreikai players and amateurs. Since the tournament is in its first term, there has been no Joryu Title holder yet. The two finalists comes on the stage by beating their competiters in the knock-down tournament starting from this April. Kato defeated five players like Watanabe Mio, Ohba Miki, Chiba Ryoko, Iwane Shinobu and Ito Sae while Shimizu won four games against Ishidaka Sumie, Matsuo Kaori, Ueda Hatsumi and Nakamura Marika to come to the this best of five match to decide the first Joryu Ouza. Let's enjoy seeing the historic opportunity that will show who is stronger, a lady professional Shimizu or a female Shoreikai player Kato. The winner of the match will get the prize money amounted to five million yen.
The game started at 10:00am at Hotel New Otani in Tokyo. As a result of Furigoma, Shimizu became Sente. Shimizu's first move was P-2f, advancing her Rook Pawn. Kato's response was P-8d. Since Shimizu is considered to be very good at Aigakari(Dobule Wing) Opening even by male professionals, Kato's magnificent choice to accept to go for that Opening drew spectators' attention. The allotted thinking time per player is three hours. I think it will end after 4:00pm(Japan time) today.
You can replay and watch the game through the following official liveboard;
Here is the official website of the first Ricoh Cup Joryu Ouza-sen renewed recently. And a chat environment with watching a slightly-deferred-liveboard is ready at 81Dojo.
In addition, this game's live commentary by 7-dan Sanada Keiichi is on live at Nico Nico Douga. Although it's in Japanese and you need to be a free menber of the video sharing application to see it, watching the possible moves Sanada is showing on the display board will be interesting.
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