is one of the eight titles in Japanese professional

shogi , also known as Japanese chess, is a Strategy game, strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as chess, Western chess, chaturanga, xiangqi, Indian chess, and janggi. ...

. The tournament is co-sponsored by

Sports Nippon , also known as , is the first Japanese daily sports newspaper, having been founded in 1948. In a 1997 report it was called one of the "Big Three" sports papers in Japan, out of a field of 17 sports dailies. It is an affiliate newspaper of the ...

and the

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English-language news website called , and publishes a bilin ...

with additional support received from and the . The word also refers to the piece called the "

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

" in shogi.

History

The tournament was first held in 1950 as a non-title tournament. The following year in 1951, it was elevated to major title status as the third major title along with the

Meijin is one of the eight titles in Japanese professional shogi player, professional shogi, and is the most prestigious title, along with Ryūō. The word ( "excellent, artful", "person") refers to a highly skilled master of a certain field (the ...

and

Tenth Dan Tenth may refer to: Numbers * 10th, the ordinal form of the number ten * One tenth, , or 0.1, a fraction, one part of a unit divided equally into ten parts. ** the SI prefix deci- ** tithe, a one-tenth part of something * 1/10 of any unit of me ...

(later

Ryūō Ryūō (also Ryu-O, Ryu-oh, Ryuuou; in Japanese: 龍王, 竜王, lit. " Dragon King") is an annual Japanese professional shogi tournament and the title of its winner. The current Ryūō title holder is Sōta Fujii. The Ryūō Tournament (''Ryū ...

) title tournaments.

Format

The tournament is open to all and takes place in four stages. The first and second preliminary rounds consist of multiple

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

s in which the first round winners advance to compete against each other in the second round. The three winners of the second round tournaments then advance to a round-robin league called the "" along with four seeded players. The winner of the challenger league then advances to a

best-of-seven There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the ''single elimination'', the ''best-of-'' series, the ''total points series'' more commonly kn ...

championship match against the reigning Ōshō title holder. If two players or more finish tied for first in the challenger league, a single-game playoff between the two highest seeded players is held to determine the challenger. The

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. For turn-based games such as chess, shogi or go, time cont ...

s are three hours per player for the two preliminary rounds, four hours per player for the challenger league, and eight hours per player for the championship match. The championship match is held from January to March.

Winners

The following is a list of the winners and runners-up for past Ōshō title matches.

Records

* Most titles overall: Yasuharu Oyama, 20 * Most consecutive titles: Yasuharu Oyama, 9 in a row (1963-1971)

Lifetime Ōshō

is the title given to a player who has won the championship ten times. An active player may qualify for the title, but it is only officially awarded upon retirement or death. Yasuharu Oyama and

Yoshiharu Habu is a professional shogi player and a chess FIDE Master. He is a former holder of the Ryūō, Meijin, Ōi, Ōza, Kiō, Ōshō and Kisei major titles. He was the first person to simultaneously hold seven major professional shogi titles ...

are the only players who have qualified for this title: Oyama qualified in 1973 and Habu qualified for the title in 2007.

Parallel in amateur shogi

There is a separate tournament held each year for amateurs called the which is sponsored by the

Japan Shogi Association The , or JSA, is the primary organizing body for professional shogi in Japan. The JSA sets the professional calendar, negotiates sponsorship and media promotion deals, helps organize tournaments and title matches, publishes shogi-related materia ...

with support from the Igo & Shogi Channel. The winner is awarded the title .

References

External links

Mainichi Shimbun: Ōshō tournament

Sports Nippon: Shogi

{{Shogi title tournaments Shogi tournaments