Official News Release

Kajiura Hirotaka 4-Dan (24 years old) has been promoted to 5-Dan, winning the game described below.

Date of promotion

July 25th, 2019

Game

4th Yamada Challenge Cup
（opponent: Ishii Kentaro 5-Dan）

Ground of promotion

100 wins in official matches after becoming 4-Dan

Japan Shogi Association (JSA) had a selection meeting of 'Oyama Yasuharu Prize' and decided to award the indivisual category to 2 people and party category to 2 parties of 'the 26th Oyama Yasuharu Prize.' This award is set up to praise those who have contributed to spreading shogi and advancement cultures for long years.
The recipients are shown below.

Indivisual Category（2 people）

Koike Masao
Okada Hiromichi

Party Category（2 parties）

Fujita Kanko Inc.
Noda City

The Recipients of the 26th Oyama Yasuharu Award

Indivisual Category

Koike Masao （85 years old）living in Minami-alps city, Yamanashi pref.

Achievement
He works for over 30 years as the head of Yamanashi prefectural branch of JSA, arranges many games and makes great effort to develop shogi environment in Yamanashi prefecture.

Okada Hiromichi（80 years old）living in Yamagata city, Yamagata pref.

Achievement
He made a great contribution to develop shogi environment in Yamagata as the first head of Yamagata prefectural branch of JSA. He is currently the honorary head of Yamagata prefectural branch.

Party Category

Fujita Kanko Inc.

Achievement
'Chinzanso', which it runs, is known for the place where meijin-sen begins every year and where the conferral ceremony of meijin is held.

Noda City

Achievement
This city cooperates with JSA positively. Its activity bases on Sekine Kinjiro memorial house, where ladies meijin-sen is held. Also the first shogi summit was held in this city.

Public Interest Incorporated Association Japan Shogi Association (JSA, the president : Sato Yasumitsu) and Ricoh Company, Ltd. （President and CEO： Yamashita Yoshinori）developed "Ricoh Shogi AI Game Recording System" (so-called "Ricoh Kiroku") which is able to record games automatically by AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology to address the shortage of recording staffs. JSA and Ricoh will start a collaborative experiment from July 2019.

Currently, JSA holds more than 3,000 games annually, and recording staffs keep the piece movement and time manually on every single game. Thus far, members of Shoreikai, a competitive "school" to become professional Shogi players, mainly keep game records. In the meantime, the shortage of recording staffs has become a chronic problem because the number of Shoreikai members who go to high-school or college is increasing, plus the number of games is going up. There has been a concern that it will eventually be not possible to keep all the "game records", which are important assets of JSA and sponsors of each tournament.

Instead of done by recording staffs, this Ricoh Kiroku system is capable of automatically recording the progress of shogi games, via the image processing function and AI technology developed by Ricoh. It is expected to substantially relief the shortage of recording staffs by a real-time data transmission of a game record generated from AI software, which analyzes motion picture data photographed by a fixed-point camera being set on the ceiling.

JSA and Ricoh are aiming to experimentally adopt it for feasibility studies from the 9th of Ricoh Cup Ladies Oza Match scheduled on July 2019, and to start full-scale operation from April 2020.

Ricoh has sponsored Ricoh Cup Ladies Oza Match since 2011. In addition, Ricoh Shogi Club has won the first prize of S-Kyu at Prime Minister Cup Shogi competition among Occupational organizations for seven years in a row, and has accumulated a great deal of know-how related to Shogi games by having involved in Shogi.

As one of the efforts for developing AI technology, Ricoh established "AI Research Field Center" in 2017, where they apply AI to products and engage in their internal business reform. Aiming to develop world-class AI technology by developing unique and advanced technologies, and at the same time Ricoh will try to make AI more versatile so that it can be widely used to solve the problems that customers have.

The "Ricoh Shogi AI Game Recording System" is released as an example of AI applications to solve customers' daily issues. This system can help JSA with promoting "Work style reform" which will lead to flourish Shogi culture.

The comment from Sato Yasumitsu, the president of JSA (Summary)

Game records play an important role as incontrovertible evidence for professional Shogi players and Ladies shogi players. Every single game record is a great achievement with the utmost care. Game records are not only a core of each player's professional career, but also are significant assets for JSA. I suppose that these records show enjoyment of Shogi and characteristics of pro players, and attracts Shogi fans.

JSA has kept all of official game records, and more than 100 thousand games were recorded into our database as of today. Currently, recording staffs keep the sequence of moves of more than 3,000 official games a year, however there's a chronic shortage of recording staffs. The members of Shoreikai serve as recording staffs, but the number of Shoreikai members who go to high-school or college is increasing, plus the number is games is going up.

Under such circumstances, we expect that our partnership with Ricoh may solve this problems and we can take a new step for better usage of AI.

The comment from Furushima Tadashi, Corporate Vice President at Ricoh Co Ltd. /General Manager of Innovation/R&D Division and General Manager of Intellectual Property Division/ President at Ricoh Shogi Club (Summary)

Ricoh has sponsored Ladies' Oza Tournament since 2011 with a strong partnership with JSA. We began as a printer and copier manufacturer, but have greatly expanded our areas of business not only for offices but also for communities by providing value-added services to help people work smarter.

The "Ricoh Kiroku" will be able to convey enjoyment of Shogi to the stake holders of Shogi including fans, and reduce the workforce issues with its automatic game recording system powered by the AI-driven image recognition.
This is the first time for Ricoh to apply AI to a cultural scene. We believe that we can expand our AI business in the future and help people in various areas.

At the press conference, a demonstration game was played by Suzuki Daisuke, an executive director of JSA, and Nishio Akira, an executive director of JSA, to exhibit how "Ricoh Shogi AI Game Recording System" works (Shown in the photo below).

Kato Yuria Ladies 2-Kyu（16 years old), winning the game described below.

Date of promotion

June 13th, 2019

Game

27th Oyama Meijin Cup, Kurashiki Tournament
（opponent: Kagawa Manao Ladies 3-Dan）

Ground of promotion

Kurashiki Tournament Best 8

Following JSA "Players' Society" (Kishikai) board members have been assigned at JSA general meeting on June 7th, 2019. The term is 2 years.

【JSA Board Members】（from June 7th, 2019）

President Nakamura Osamu 9-dan（56 years old）reassignment
Vice President Hatakeyama Mamoru 7-Dan（50 years old）reassignment
Vice President Itodani Tetsuro 8-Dan（30 years old）new assignment
Vice President Toyama Yusuke 6-Dan（39 years old）new assignment

※Vice president Kubo Toshiaki 9-Dan has resigned from board.

Toyoshima Masayuki Double-Crown (Oui, Kisei) (29 years old) has been promoted to 9-Dan by winning the 4th match of 7-game series for 77th Meijin-sen held on May 16-17th, to have completed a 4-0 sweep and acquired Meijin title.

Date of promotion

May 17th, 2019

Game

The 77th Meijin Title match, 4th game
(opponent: Sato Amahiko Meijin)

Reason of promotion

Winning Meijin title once

Ito Sae Ladies 2-Dan (25 years old) has been promoted to Ladies 3-Dan by winning a following game.

Date of Promotion

April 26th, 2019

Game

The 1st Hulic Seirei-sen Qualification round
(Opponent: Odaka Sakiko Ladies 2-Kyu)

Reason of Promotion

90 wins since becoming Ladies 2-Dan

"The first qualification round same-day games" of the 9th RICOH Ladies Oza will be held on May 11th among total 64 players, including 6 amateur players (qualified East Japan amateur tournament on 7th April and West Japan amateur tournament on 21th April), an overseas invitee player, and 57 professional Ladies players.

The 9th tournament's overseas invitee player is Turmunkh Munkhzul from Mongol.
Munkhzul is a 17 years old student who won over Tatiana Milyukova (Belarus), who was the invitee player of previous year. Her first game opponent is Watanabe Mio Ladies 1-Dan.

Comment

I would like to play Shogi with a professional Ladies player.

Yashiro Wataru 6-Dan (25 years old) won the game below and promoted to 7-Dan.

Date of Promotion

April 23rd, 2019

Game

32nd Ryuo-sen Ranking Class 3
(vs Sanmaido Tatsuya 6-Dan)

Reason of Promotion

Consecutive promotion in Ryuo-sen Ranking since becoming 6-Dan

Yamasaki Takayuki 8-Dan (38 years old) won a game of 67th Oza Tournament secondary qualification (Supported by Nikkei Inc.) on April 12th at Kansai Shogi Kaikan against Kitahama Kensuke 8-Dan, and achieved total 600 wins in official games, receiving 56th Shogi Honor Award.

Total result of Yamasaki Takayuki 8-Dan at 600 wins

929 games with 600 wins and 329 loses (winning ratio 0.646)