Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Kubo Toshiaki vs Sato Yasumitsu, 2nd game of 61st Osho-sen - Boardlive Today

Today is the day for the second game of 61st Osho-sen best of seven match between Osho Kubo Toshiaki and challenger 9-dan Sato Yasumitsu. Sato took the first game played on January 8 & 9 and the score is 1-0 led by him. The venue is Hotel Kagetsu in Ohtawara city in Tochigi prefecture. Kubo is Sente. The game started at 9:00am. Day 1 will be closed at 6:00pm taking lunch break with time off and Day 2 will start at 9:00am again tomorrow with lunch time break suspending game clock. The allotted thinking time per player is eight hours. Let's see what is happening in the Opening when I'm writing this entry now. Though I anticipated Kubo's ranging Rook vs Sato's Static Rook, Sato's choice was double ranging Rook(Ai Furibisha).  Both player moved their Rook to the third file from their left end. The next attention will be what castle they are making, Mino, Yagura, Anaguma, or Nimaikin.

You can watch or replay the game through the official live-board linked below;

• Kubo vs Sato

Here is the official site of the 61st Ohsho-sen(in Japanese). And you can see the game at 81 dojo with a chat window as well.

Hoki, the developer of Bonanza, to have a Seminar at Alberta University

Today I found the following announcement in the website of Alberta University in Canada. Hoki-sen will provide a seminar about the recent advance of computer shogi and Bonanza there. I think he will fly to the venue from Japan. The date of it will be February 3.

• Recent advances in computer shogi and the Bonanza program | Department of Comput...

February 3, 2012 - 12:00pm - 1:00pm

CSC 3-33

Shogi is one of the major variants of chess. The material balance is less important and the branching factor is greater than in Western chess. Because of these properties, creating a decent computer shogi player was a difficult challenge. When Deep Blue defeated the World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, the most advanced Shogi program at that time was no better than an ordinary amateur player. Recently, computer shogi programs have started to defeat human experts. The program Akara2010 defeated one of the top female shogi professionals in 2010, another program, Ponanza, achieved the highest rating in blitz games among all players in the most popular online shogi server, Shogi Club 24, in 2011, and most recently Bonkras defeated a retired top professional player, Yonenaga, in 2012. In this talk, two main features of the computer shogi program Bonanza, one of the strongest shogi programs, will be presented. One main feature is the optimization method used to train the full evaluation function with more than ten million parameters. The other is a game tree search method which is more brute-force and less selective than other popular approaches. We close with some comparisons of the algorithmic differences between chess programs and Bonanza.

Shimizu vs Satomi, 2nd game of 38th Joryu Meijini-sen - Boardlive today

Today is the day for the 2nd game of the 38th Joryu Meijini-sen between Joryu Meijin Satomi Kana and Joryu 6-dan Shimizu Ichiyo. Shimizu took the first game. She is Sente for this game. The game started at 9:00am. Since the allotted thinking time per player is three ours, I think it will end around 4:00pm(JST) today. You can replay and watch the game from the official board through the link below;

• Shimizu vs Satomi

Here is the official site of the 38th Joryu Meijini-sen. A slightly-deferred-liveboard with a chat window is ready at 81dojo.

Namekata Hisashi vs Sugai Tatsuya, Quarter Final, 5th Asahi Trophy Shogi Open

The following game started at 2:00pm(JST). Since the allotted thinking time per player is 40 minutes, I think it will end around 4:00pm(JST).

• 8-dan Namekata Hisashi vs 5-dan Sugai Tatsuya

These two players are the winners of the games played in this morning. You can replay the games through the following links;

• 8-dan Namekata Hisashi vs Ryuo Watanabe Akira
• 2 crown Kubo Toshiaki vs 5-dan Sugai Tatsuya

Fujitsu Laboratory's News Release about Bonkras beating former Meijin Yonenaga

I found the release today. This seems to be the translation into English of the source article in Japanese released on January 16.

• Fujitsu’s Shogi Software Tops Former Shogi Champion Kunio Yonenaga | Vadvert - UK Paid Press Release Distribution Service

<Addition>

Several hours after I uploaded the above, I found the Business Wire India distributed the same story.

• Fujitsu's Shogi Software Tops Former Shogi Champion Kunio Yonenaga

Articles about Machine's victory I found today

I found the following article in English today about Bonkaras's victory against retired and former Meijin Yonenaga.

• Shogi program 'Bonkras' defeats expert player Yonenaga in first official match - The Mainichi Daily News
• Asiajin » The First Top-Pro-vs-Computer Shogi(Japanese Chess) Match Was Won By Computer
• Man vs Machine - fuckedgaijin
• Computer program defeats professional shogi player

Satomi vs Shimizu, 1st game of 38th Joryu Meijini-sen - Shogi boardlive today

Today is the day for the first game of the 38th Joryu Meijini-sen best of five match between Joryu Meijin Satomi Kana and challenger Joryu 6-dan Shimizu Ichiyo. Shimizu became here to beat all the other nine members in the A league without any loss. The venue of this game is at Izumo Culture Tradition  Hall in Shimane prefecture, Japan. As a result of Furigoma, Satomi became Sente. Since the allotted thinking time per player is three hours, I think the game will end after 3:00pm(JST) today. The game started at 9:00am today. You can replay and watch the game through the following link;

• Satomi vs Shimizu

Here is the official site of the 38th Joryu Meijini-sen. A slightly-deferred-liveboard with chat window is ready at 81 dojo.

Bonkras beat Yonenaga in 113 moves

The computer software Bankras beat retired and former Meijin Yonenaga Kunio in 113 moves yesterday. The allotted thinking time per move was three hours per player. You can replay the game through the link below;

• Bankras vs Yonenaga

Three shogi boardlives today - 5th Asahi Shogi Open

The following two boardlives are available to watch and replay.

• 9-dan Tanigawa Koji(Sente) vs 9-dan Sato Yasumitsu
• 9-dan Takahashi Michio vs 9-dan Goda Masataka
  

They began at 10:00am(JST) today. The allotted thinking time per player is 40 minutes and after it is consumed, they have to make a move less than 60 seconds per move. So I think it will end within two hour from the start time.

The winners' game to decide who will be one of the semi-finalists will be played at 2:00pm(JST) today. The time condition is the sam as above. (The game started at 2:30pm which was delayed thirty minutes as scheduled due to the game of Tanigawa vs Sato took longer.)

• Sato Yasmitsu(Sente) vs Goda Masataka

Two shogi boardlives today - Semifinals, 5th Mynavi Joshi Open

Today is the day for the semi-finals of 5th Mynavi Joshi Open. The four players who have come to this stage are three crown Satomi Kana, lady 6-dan Shimizu Ichiyo, lady-5dan Saida Haruko, and rookie player Joryu shodan Hasegawa Yuki. The parings today are Satomi vs Shimizu and Saida vs Hasegawa. You can replay and watch these games on the official liveboards linked below;

• Shimizu(Sente) vs Satomi
• Saida(Sente) vs Hasegawa

The opening in the first game is Satomi's 4th file rook(shikenbisha) against Shimizu's static Rook as many expected. It surprized people a bit why Satomi did not choose Gokigen Nakabisha(central Rook).  The second game took the course of double-ranging Rook(Ai-furibisha). Since the games began at 10::00am(JST) and the allotted thinking time per player is three hours, I think they will end after 4:00pm(JST) today. Let's see who two of them wiil be the finalists.

Here is the official site of the 5th Mynavi Joshi open. You can also watch and replay the game of Satomi vs Shimizu at 81 dojo that has a chat window just under the slightly-deferred-liveboard to exchange views on the positions of the game or so.