Shibano Toramaru (芝野虎丸) is a Japanese Go professional who won the prestigious

Meijin is one of the eight titles in Japanese professional shogi, and is the most prestigious title, along with Ryūō. The word ''meijin'' (名 ''mei'' "excellent, artful", 人 ''jin'' "person") refers to a highly skilled master of a certain field (t ...

tournament in 2019 at age 19, becoming the first teenager to achieve one of the seven major Japanese titles.

Early life

Shibano Toramaru was born 9 November 1999 in

Kanagawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

prefecture, Kantō region,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He plays for the

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

branch of the Japanese Go Association (also known as the

Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associat ...

) and is ranked as a 9 dan professional. He says that he started to play Go under the influence of his parents who were fans of ''

Hikaru no Go is a Japanese manga series based on the board game Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The production of the series' Go games was supervised by Go professional Yukari Umezawa. It was serialized in Shueisha's ''Weekl ...

'' (ヒカルの碁, lit. "Hikaru's Go"), a Japanese manga series based on the game.

Career

Shibano became a

shodan SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network) is a fictional artificial intelligence and the main antagonist of the cyberpunk-horror themed video games ''System Shock'' and ''System Shock 2''. Character design SHODAN is an artificial in ...

in September 2014 and rose quickly after scoring notable successes. In 2015 he progressed to two dan following 30 professional wins and in 2016 he became a three dan. In 2019 he achieved professional nine dan rank after securing the Meijin title. In September 2017, as a result of winning the Ryusei tournament in August (where he beat Yo Seiki 7P ��正麒, he was promoted to seven dan. In the same year Shibano became the youngest ever player to win a seat in the

Honinbo In the history of Go in Japan, the four Go houses were four major schools of Go instituted, supported, and controlled by the state, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. (There were also many minor houses.) At roughly the same time shogi w ...

league. At 17 years 11 months, he became the youngest player to win a seat in the

League. In October 2017 Shibano also won the 42nd Shinjin-O (新人王), beating Son Makoto 5P ��喆 Shibano's successes continued in 2018, including winning the 4th Japan-China Ryusei tournament in April (beating

Ke Jie Ke Jie () is a Chinese professional Go player of 9 dan rank. He was born on August 2, 1997 in Liandu District, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. Career 2008–15: Early Career and Bailing Cup Breakthrough Ke Jie started to learn how to play ...

9P) and coming second in the 25th

Agon Cup The Agon Kiriyama Cup (阿含･桐山杯) is a Go competition. Outline The Agon Kiriyama Cup is a Go competition endorsed by the Nihon Kiin. It was started in 1994Nihon Ki-in, Japanese languagtournament results page retrieved on June 3rd, 2015 b ...

in October (to Ichiriki Ryō 8P ��力遼. On 8 October 2019, Shibano won the Japanese Meijin tournament, defeating

Cho U Cho U (; born on 20 January 1980) is a Taiwanese professional Go player. He currently ranks 6th in the most titles won by a Japanese professional; his NEC Cup win in 2011 put him past his teacher Rin Kaiho and Norimoto Yoda. Cho is the first pl ...

(张栩) 4-1, becoming the first teenage player to have won one of the seven major Japanese titles and achieving the rank of 9P. Recently he has also won two other major Japanese titles: the Oza and the Judan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toramaru, Shibano 1999 births Japanese Go players People from Kanagawa Prefecture Living people