Today is the day for the second game of the 5th Mynavi Joshi Open best of five match between Hasegawa Yuuki(Photo link) and Ueda Hatsumi(Photo link). The game started at 10:00am(JST) today at Takinoyu in Tendo, where the reception party of the 4th International Shogi Festival was held in 2008. Hasegawa is Sente for this game. As a result of the Furigoma in the first game, Hasegawa is supposed to play as Sente in the even-numbered games up to the 4th game. Ueda took the first game so the score before this game is 1-0 led by Queen.
Some Shogi medium say Hasegawa is a "Cinderella girl" as she just became a femal professional players last year as a high schooler and became a challenger against Queen Ueda by winning five games in a row in the knock-down tournament. But I personally think it's too early to call her "Cinderella" yet. Whether we can truly call her Cinderella depends on whether she takes the first title in this match. So let's see what's happening today and in the later games. Hasegawa's first game against Ueda was in the previous Mynavi knock-down challenger deciding tournament in 2010 when she was still amateur player. Ueda defeated Hasegawa then and continued to win in the tournament and beating ex-Queen Yauchi to take the title. So Hasegawa has not overcome the barrier of Ueda yet.
You can watch and replay the game through the following link of the live-board.
Here are the links to the official site of the 5th Mynavi Joshi Open and the official blog with lots of photos of both players to be uploaded. You can also watch the game at 81dojo with a chat window where you can have a chat on the game and other stuff with other spectators. I think the game will end sometime after 4:00pm since the allotted thinking time per player is three hours. Please be advised the lunch break will be inserted during the play between 0:00pm and 1:00pm(JST) with time-off.
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