Last weekend in KitaKyuushuu there was the International Shogi Forum. This event happens once every 3 years and the strongest players around the world meet in maybe the most important tournament for foreigners.

Three years ago this tournament was in Shizuoka and I was able to visit it but this year due to personal reasons I couldn’t go. The winner in Shizuoka was the special invited representative from Japan. A schoolboy. This year, the invited player from Japan was Hato Yasuhiro. Hato was a football player and he even played with the National Team of Japan!

The final game of this year confronted the representants of the United States (Keiji Tomita) and China (Gu Guanming). These final participants really surprised me since I have been following Europian Shogi and I know the high level in Europe I expected some europian player on the final game.

Tomita played a very singular opening against the third file rook of Guanming. He used the boukin instead of bougin. Bougin is the tactic named when moving forward the pawn of the rook with the help of the silver (gin) and boukin is when the gold (kin) is used. Usually, the gold is a defensive piece so it’s not quite normal to use it for the attack.

Tomita took the lead in the medium game and he kept his advantage without making any bad moves.

You can see the game here:

SHOGIDB2

Good work to all the participants and congratulations to the winners!!