{"id":129,"date":"2017-12-02T14:34:32","date_gmt":"2017-12-02T14:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=129"},"modified":"2022-12-29T07:09:44","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T07:09:44","slug":"yoshiharu-habu-a-shogi-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"Yoshiharu Habu- A Shogi Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yoshiharu Habu (\u7fbd\u751f \u5584\u6cbb Habu Yoshiharu<\/strong>, born September 27, 1970) is a professional Japanese chess (shogi<\/gs>) player and a chess FIDE Master. He is widely regarded as the greatest shogi<\/gs> player ever.<\/p>\n

Briefly about shogi<\/gs><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to researchers, the origin of chess and its regional variants was invented in Eastern India c. 280\u2013550, where its early form in the 6th century was known as a chaturanga<\/gs> (literally four divisions). Thence it spread eastward and westward along the Silk Road. In the west, it became chess (or international chess) and in east Japanese chess (shogi<\/gs>), Chinese chess (xiangqi<\/gs>), Korean chess (jiangqi<\/gs>) and Thai chess (matruk<\/gs>). Sometime in the 10th to 12th centuries, ’chess’ crossed the channel to Japan where<\/gs> it spawned a number of interesting variants. One of these was called ’Small Shogi’. Eventually, Small Shogi (though it went through many forms) won out over the larger variants and is now referred to simply as ’Shogi’. It is certain that Shogi in its present form was played<\/gs> in Japan as early as the 16th century.<\/p>\n

Shogi is played by two players facing each other over a board of 9×9 squares. The distinctive feature of shogi<\/gs> is the use of \u201ddrops\u201d, i.e. the<\/gs> player, in turn, can re-enter (drop) the pieces he has captured from the opponent on almost any vacant square instead of making a move with the pieces on the board. This means that all pieces remain in play until the end of the game. The second distinctive feature is that several pieces can promote on reaching the last three ranks of the opponent\u00b4s side of the board called \u201dthe promotion zone\u201d. Promotion is indicated by turning the piece over after it moves, revealing the character of the promoted piece. These features greatly increase the appeal and the possibilities of shogi<\/gs>.<\/p>\n

Currently, there are estimated to be around 15 million amateurs playing the game in Japan.<\/p>\n

Said about shogi<\/gs><\/strong><\/p>\n

– The 13th chess World Champion Garry Kasparov: \u201dShogi is a unique game. I want to go to Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

– The chess Grandmaster and chess writer Jonathan Tisdall: \u201dShogi is a better-designed game than chess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Links about shogi<\/gs><\/strong><\/p>\n

– Reijer Grimbergen shogi<\/gs> page<\/a> is a great website featuring analyzed pro shogi<\/gs> games and pro player profiles. Unfortunately, Reijer has lost his interest in shogi<\/gs> and the website will not be updated in the future.<\/p>\n

– The International Shogi Server<\/a><\/p>\n

– Wikipedia\u00b4s article about shogi<\/gs><\/a>, good as always.<\/p>\n

Yoshiharu Habu<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yoshiharu Habu (born in 1970) is a living shogi<\/gs> legend. He is widely regarded as the greatest shogi<\/gs> player ever. Habu first encountered shogi<\/gs> in his first year of elementary school, when his classmates taught him how the shogi<\/gs> pieces move. He achieved professional status in 1985, aged 15. In 1996 (February 14 to July 30), Habu became the first professional to ever hold all seven major titles (Ryu-oh, Meijin, Kisei, Oi, Oza, Kioh, and Osho) at the same time, a remarkable feat that has not been duplicated since. Shogi players often talk about \u201dHabu magic\u201d, i.e. Habu\u00b4s<\/gs> ability to come up with surprising and strong moves. Habu is also a strong international chess player having a chess FIDE Master title and a FIDE ranking of about 2400. The following link is to Habu\u00b4s chess games http:\/\/www.chessgames.com\/player\/yoshiharu_habu.html. Habu began to play international chess at the age of 30. Personally, I feel sure that he would have become a chess Grandmaster if he would have begun at an earlier age.<\/p>\n

Below is a photo of Yoshiharu Habu playing simultaneous chess\/shogi<\/gs> exhibition match against elite French chess Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Below is a brief interview with Yoshiharu Habu.<\/p>\n

Yoshiharu Habu interview<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yoshiharu Habu (\u7fbd\u751f \u5584\u6cbb Habu Yoshiharu, born September 27, 1970) is a professional Japanese chess (shogi) player and a chess FIDE Master. He is widely regarded as the greatest shogi player ever. Briefly about shogi According to researchers, the origin of chess and its regional variants was invented in Eastern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Fvmv-25","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=256","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":0},"title":"Hikaru Nakamura – A Japanese-American Chess Grandmaster","date":"4 hein\u00e4kuun, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Hikaru Nakamura (born December 9, 1987) is an Japanese-American chess grandmaster. In 2003, at the age of 15 years and 79 days, Nakamura become the youngest American to earn the grandmaster title, breaking the record of Bobby Fischer by three months. He began playing chess prior to the age of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Kategoriassa "Chess"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":192,"url":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=192","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":1},"title":"Viswanathan Anand – the Tiger of Madras","date":"21 tammikuun, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Viswanathan \u201cVishy\u201d Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess Grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, and the current World Rapid Chess Champion. He is called \u201dVishy\u201d or the \u201dTiger of Madras\u201d. I first heard about Anand way back in 1983 while reading a Finnish chess magazine called \u201cSuomen\u2026","rel":"","context":"Kategoriassa "Chess"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":222,"url":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=222","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":2},"title":"Fabiano Caruana – An Italian-American Chess Grandmaster","date":"27 maaliskuun, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an Italian-American chess grandmaster. He is called \u201dFabi\u201d by fans and chess public. Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 20 days\u2014the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United States at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Kategoriassa "Chess"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":244,"url":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/?p=244","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":3},"title":"Lee Chang-ho – A Go Legend","date":"4 huhtikuun, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Lee Chang-ho (Korean:\uc774\ucc3d\ud638; born 29 July 1975 in Jeonju, North Jeolla) is a South Korean professional Go player of 9-dan rank. Briefly about Go Go was invented in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played today (backgammon is also a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Kategoriassa "Go"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikakaakinen.fi\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}