Official News Release

9-Dan Shouji Kenmochi (81 years old) died of heart failure on Thursday, January 7th 2016 in a hospital in Nishi-Tokyo city, Tokyo.
We hereby address our deepest condolences.

The foreign guest player to the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament will be decided with an online preliminary tournament as described below. The winner will be invited to Japan to participate in the 1st Qualify Round of the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament held on May 22nd. The travel and hotel expenses of the guest player will be borne by the organizer.

Selection method

One guest player will be selected in an online tournament held on "81Dojo", the international online shogi site popular with foreign players. For the details of the rules and regulations, please refer to the separate document.

Requirements for participation

A female player, who:
（１） has a non-Japanese nationality
（２） resides outside Japan (Residents of Japan are requested to apply for the Amateur Preliminary.)
（３） can, as the winner, travel to Japan to participate in the 1st Qualify Round of the Women's "Ouza" Championship (If the winner is younger than 18, one guardian may accompany her. The organizer will bear the travel and hotel expenses of the guardian as well.)
（４） can play online at 81Dojo

How to register

For the registration, a recommendation by a shogi association/federation is required. Please fill out the application form and send it to a foreign branch of the Japan Shogi Association or a major shogi organization of the country. Up to 3 players can participate from a country. For more details, please refer to the separate document.

Deadline for registration

February 13th

Schedule

February 27th ~ March 13th Online Preliminary, 1st Round
March 26th ~ March 27th　Online Preliminary, Finals
May 22nd The 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Championship, 1st Qualify

Contact

info@81dojo.com (Executive office of the Online Preliminary, the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament.)

URL

「Points of Entry」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Points_of_Registration_en.pdf
「Application Form」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Application_Form_en.doc
「Tournament Regulations」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Regulations_en.pdf

On January 5th, 2016, the regular new year's event "Shogi-do Prayer Ceremony" was held at Hatonomori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya, Tokyo.

"New Year's First Game Ceremony" was also held at Shogi-Kaikan in Tokyo and Osaka, where many professional players and related parties attended.

2016 Shogi-do Prayer Ceremony

2016 New Year's First Game Ceremony

Shogi-kaikan, Tokyo
　

A student from the Shogi-kaikan Children's Class

　
Ryu-ou Akira Watanabe and Ou-shou Masataka Gouda attended as well

Shogi-kaikan, Osaka
　
　
New Year's First Game was played also in Kansai Shogi-kaikan (Osaka)

Happy New Year.
First I would like to express my wish that 2016 will be a wonderful year for all shogi fans.

Ei-ou Tournament, newly started last year, was won by 8-Dan Takayuki Yamasaki. You could expect exciting games in the Den-nou 2-game Match in spring.
Japan Series Children's Shogi Tournament gathered more than 10,000 participants for the first time as a sum of 11 locations. This is entirely thanks to the continued efforts by the shogi fans, members of JSA branches, and official trainers. I would like to express my gratitude once again to all of you.

Last year we saw a trend that more and more people are starting to be familiarized with shogi, seeing Ms. Karin Itou of Nogizaka 46 being the presenter of Shogi Focus on NHK, as well as figure skater Mr. Yuzuru Hanyu talking about shogi in his interview.
And this year, "March comes in like a lion" and "Satoshi-no-seishun" (Satoshi's Youth) are going to be made into films. We hope to be able to provide many new pleasant topics for the shogi fans.
We would like to thank you in advance for your continued support.

January 2016
Chairman Koji Tanigawa