Japanese Chess – Shogi – 将棋
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Tag: Japanese Chess

  • Shogi for Curious Minds: Why Japanese Chess Is So Addictive

    By Galo S Mirth

    If you speak English and enjoy strategy games, there is a very good chance Shogi will surprise you (in the best possible way). It looks familiar at first glance: two players, a board, pieces with different powers, and a single royal piece to protect. But once you play a few games, you notice that Shogi does something many classic board games struggle to do: it stays creative deep into the game, even after major captures. That freshness comes from one famous rule. In Shogi, captured pieces are not dead forever. They can come back onto the board under your control. This one mechanic changes almost everything: defense, attack, tempo, and long-term planning. It also means a game is rarely “over” just because one side is behind in material. If you are willing to think clearly and fight for initiative, counterplay is always alive. (more…)

  • Shogi 2000 in Review

    By Galo S Mirth

    It is tempting to describe professional shogi in 2000 as “the usual suspects”. Yoshiharu Habu (羽生善治) was still the gravitational center of the title scene, and Takeshi Fujii (藤井猛) still wore the Ryuou crown. But if you look closely at the year, the storyline is less about permanence and more about pressure: challengers finally breaking through, champions defending by the thinnest margins, and new ideas on the board that hinted at where modern shogi was heading.

    Here is a tour of the most interesting shogi events of 2000, as seen through Japanese records and reporting.

    1) A new Meijin: Tadahisa Maruyama breaks through

    The Meijin is often treated as the season’s “main” title because it is the end point of the long Junisen league system (名人戦・順位戦). In 2000, the biggest headline was a changing of the guard: Tadahisa Maruyama (丸山忠久) won the 58th Meijin title, defeating Yasuharu Sato (佐藤康光) 4-3 and becoming Meijin for the first time.

    For fans, that mattered for more than just the trophy. It signaled that the top tier was not locked into one pattern. A challenger could still land the final punch, even in a match that goes the distance.

    2) Habu’s summer and autumn: regain one crown, defend two more

    If Maruyama provided the shock of the year, Habu provided the through-line. In the 71st Kisei (棋聖戦), Habu took the title from Koji Tanigawa (谷川浩司) by a 3-2 score, a reminder that even a short match can demand both preparation and nerve.

    Then came a pair of defenses that reinforced just how narrow the gap was at the top. Habu defended the Oi (王位戦) against Tanigawa 4-3, and later defended the Ouza (王座戦) against Ryuou holder Fujii 3-2. The common theme was not domination; it was endurance. Three high stakes match formats, three different opponents, and multiple matches decided only at the last possible game.

    3) The late-year climax: Fujii holds the Ryuou

    The calendar-year finish belonged to the Ryuou (竜王戦). The 13th Ryuou title match ran deep into December and ended on December 25-26, with Fujii defending his title against Habu 4-3.

    It is hard to overstate how “2000” that feels as a finale. The year ended with a full-length, swingy championship match between two players whose names already defined an era. Fujii’s successful defense also kept the title scene tangled, because it meant the same core names would keep intersecting in different matchups as the next season began.

    4) Innovation on the board: the Millennium Castle enters the conversation

    Results tell you who won. Openings and structures tell you what the whole community was wrestling with.

    A memorable strategic story around this period was the rise of the Millennium Castle (ミレニアム囲い), a defensive setup associated with the static rook side in games against furibisha (振り飛車). The name itself captured the moment. Around 2000, professionals began to adopt and refine it consciously, and it became one of the era’s shorthand terms for “we need new answers”.

    Even if you do not memorize the exact shape, the idea is easy to appreciate: shogi’s meta does not move only because computers say so (that would come later). It moves because elite players feel pressure in their hands, in real matches, and start searching for formations that buy time and reduce risk in the lines that are currently hurting them.

    5) What the awards said about the year

    The annual Shogi Awards (将棋大賞) are not perfect as history, but they are useful as a snapshot of what stood out to insiders at the time. In the 2000 awards list, Habu was recognized as the most outstanding player, while Maruyama’s year showed up in the statistical categories such as most wins. Taken together, they summarize 2000 nicely: a year where one superstar still anchored the scene, but another player forced his way into the center of the story.

    Closing thought

    In hindsight, 2000 reads like a bridge year. The title landscape was still defined by names that dominated the late 1990s, but the margins were razor thin and the door was visibly open. A new Meijin, multiple last-game title matches, and fresh defensive ideas were all signals that the millennium did not reset shogi, but it did raise the stakes.

    Sources (Japanese)

    • 日本将棋連盟: 名人戦・順位戦（過去の結果に第58期名人戦の結果あり）: https://www.shogi.or.jp/match/junni/index.html
    • 日本将棋連盟: 第71期棋聖戦（五番勝負）: https://www.shogi.or.jp/match/kisei/71/hon.html
    • 日本将棋連盟: 第41期王位戦（七番勝負）: https://www.shogi.or.jp/match/oui/41/hon.html
    • 日本将棋連盟: 第48期王座戦（五番勝負）: https://www.shogi.or.jp/match/ouza/48/hon.html
    • 日本将棋連盟: 第13期竜王戦（七番勝負）: https://www.shogi.or.jp/match/ryuuou/13/hon.html
    • 日本将棋連盟: 将棋大賞受賞者一覧: https://www.shogi.or.jp/player/winner03.html
    • Wikipedia（日本語）: 2000年度の将棋界: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000年度の将棋界
    • Wikipedia（日本語）: ミレニアム囲い: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ミレニアム囲い