Since April 9, the 51th Tendo Sakura Matsuri (Tendo cherry blossom fesitival) started this year in Yamagata prefecture, Japan. Tendo is fomous as the city of producing shogi pieces. The main event of the festival is Ningen Shogi(Human shogi) on April 22 and 23. Tendo has entered into sister city relationship in Marostica, Italy since 1989 due to the fact that the city holds the event of Human Chess every year.
I have never been to Tendo. But I would like to make a trip there some day to see the event and drop on at shogi piece manufacturers.
Together with the release of Igo, Brainking.com has corrected the colors of players in shogi. Before the change, White used to move first(Sente) and while Black used to move second(Gote) there. But now it has got normal for shogi fans. This change seems to have been applied to all the shogi gamerecords including the games in play and the statistics of winning percentage by color.
I hope the enhancement to add handicap game to shogi will be implemented shortly. Then, Brainking.com would be a perfect turn-based shogi site.
According to the contribution to the shogi-l by Andrei Kasperovich, a new website which specilaizes in shogi has opened. It is written in two languages such as Russian and English. I hope the website will enrich its contents gradually to be recognized as a good shogi resource among the shogi fans all over the world.
According to NSR(in Japanese), the following players were awarded for the fiscal year 2005(April 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006). The prize-giving committee from sponsors of shogi title matches have defined the prize winners except for Most frequent player, Winningest player, Highest winning percentage, and Highest winning number in a row award which automatically depend on the records for the term.
* Most valuable player award --- Yoshiharu Habu(3 crowns)
--> Although Habu lost Kio, he has still 3 titles which is the biggest number among all the professional players.
--> He's granted the highest winning percentage award as well.
* Most valuable lady player award --- Rieko Yauchi(Joryu Meijin)
--> Yauchi took Joryu Meijin from Shimizu for the first time of her life.
* Impressive lady player award --- Ryoko Chiba(Joryu Osho)
* Special award --- Nobody entitled
* Most frequent player award --- Yoshiharu Habu, 62 games
* Winningest player award --- Akira Watanabe, 41 victories
* Highest winning percentage award --- Shinya Sato, 78.7%
* Highest winning number in a row award --- Yoshiharu Habu, 18 wins in a row
* Tokyo shogi press club award --- Shoji Segawa(4 dan)
* Kozo Masuda award --- Hitoshige Awaji(9 dan), 'Itte son Kakugawari Senpo(Bishop exchange with 1 move behind)
--> Late Kozo Masuda(9 dan) is famous as an innovator in the opening. He made lots of new joseki sequences. This prize is to be granted to a player who made innovation in the opening.
* Kozo Masuda special award --- Taku Morishita(9 dan), Morishita System
According to plural sources, the 3rd Shogi Solving championship was held on Mar. 22 in Shogi Kaikan(JSA's building in Sendagaya, Tokyo). The championship was competed by 22 participants. Both professional and amateur players took part. The top five solvers are as followings;
Miyata 5dan kept winning the championship three times since the first event.
For those who are interested in what problems were presented, please refer to the followings;(the problems in the 3rd Championship is not unveiled on the Net yet.)
Miyata 5dan solved all the 10 problems in the 2nd Championship in 90 minutes and did the same in the 1st championship in 76 minutes. How quick! These have given his opponents horror in the endgame and that's the why he is nicknamed 'Super Atsushi-kun' in the shogi world.
According to Forum Shôgi France, one evening blitz tournament and two day workshop about shogi will be held in Black Forest, Germany on Oct 6(Fri) through 8(Sun.). It may be a good opportunity for European players(especially beginners) to learn shogi more and to meet friends through shogi. For more information, please visit either of the followings;
On March 2, Nihon Shogi Renmei unveiled the ranking of prize and fight money for the year 2005. You can see the top 10 shogi players who earned prize and fight money most for the period on the chart above. The unit is million yen. (Correction on Apr. 1, Hiroyuki Miura ranked at 10th place in 2004, not at 6th place. Sorry for any inconveneince caused.)
This does not include income coming from copyright of books, guarantee of TV appearance, or any other income without playing an official shogi game.
According to the shogi disscussion board of brainking.com, the first private shogi tournament hosted by Yury Shpilev will be held in Kurnik.org at 13:30(GMT) on December 3. It said all the shogi players are to be invited.
I wish I could say I'm sure to participate. It will be at 22:30(JST). I'm going out for a reunion dinner party this evening so I will have to come back home without too much drinking tonight:-).
According to kurnik blog, shogi has been added to the line of its online realtime games. Kurnik.org is a Polish site. I hope this will increase the number of shogi players especially in Poland. In addition, it supports multilanguages so I hope it will serve potential shogi players in various countries who are not so good at English outside Japan.
Here is the information about how to choose symbolic(westernized) or kanji pieces. After logging in, you click to SHOGI to the entry screen of shogi. Then you can enter any room of the choice. After that, you will see the following screen.
Click the button of preferences on the upper right. Then you will have a smaller screen. Delete checkmark if you like to use Kanji pieces and press ok. Kurnik.org shows symbolic(westernized) pieces as a default.
I play there from time to time under the nickname of takodori. I will be glad if you play a game with me there.
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