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Chapter 3

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on May 23, 2009 at 2:54:07 pm
 

Chapter 3 - The Joys from Watching Shogi

 

Human experiment, taking advantages of supreme internet

On June 11, 2008, I was blessed with the fortune to watch all the ins and outs of the first game of the Kisei title match, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:16 p.m. and then a post-game analysis until 8:45 p.m. The playing room, in which two smartest brains of the shogi world competing against, was solemn yet strange which cannot be found anywhere else in Japan, nor the whole world. Coming in and going out between the quite playing room and the anteroom, filled with a lively study of the game in progress, I was highly impressed by two players, squeezing out their best moves they could think of, only believing in themselves. And, this was all done in a public space.

The responses to the first, real-time online commentary, was huge, dragging a daily page-view count of MSN Sankei News to massive 500,000. A number equivalent to that of a "headline news." I came to re-recognize that shogi is a culture deeply rooted in Japanese souls. This outcome has proven a validity of my whole day of effort.

The biggest trouble I had in writing the commentary was a short of time: I had to prepare a static plan or what I called a "frame", that allowed me to write chunks of sentences and then combine them into big paragraphs. On the day of the game, I would endlessly repeat "watch and write", therefore if I cannot write chunks in a short period of time, the commentary would end up in a failure. The "frame" I came up with was to fully note raw materials that I might be using, on my private online space.

It is like a sushi-bar. A sushi-bar would prepare sushi toppings prior to its opening, and once it opens it nimbly caters sushi according to its customers' orders. I should prepare an instant access to raw material I might use before games. Then, in the playing room, what I would see and think would automatically get connected to raw materials, and sentences would literally flow through my excitement. Once I get?/go? back to the anteroom, I would access my private online space, and pull all raw materials that had come to my mind out. This way of constructing sentences would allow me to write a lot in a burst.

I, from a month prior to the game, picked up and copied onto my private online space what I thought was the core ideas of the two players', from their writings, from their phrases written in back issues of magazine The Shogi World (Shogi Sekai), for the past ten years, and got ready an accessible storage outside my brain for when the time to actually start writing came. This was the "frame" I had prepared.

When writing real-time, coming up with something you barely remember what its source was, does no good to you. That is why I made possible, by making everything accessible online in advance, the instant search of every possible "core" idea that I might come to think of. I tried to search for my own way of practicing the Habu-theory, "quantity changes into quality," referred to in chapter 1.

Though I armed myself with a large "frame" it still was a tough job to write a real-time commentary. What most troubled me was that once I entered the playing room, I would be shut away from the studies on the game done by professional players in the anteroom. A human being cannot put its body in several different locations at a time. I had suffered a day of dilemma deriving from this human-nature reality.

A normal commentary would be written after all these troubles had been cleared, later days. "Later days" is the essential part; time can solve every problem. However, simultaneous publishing of what is being discussed at the actual scene and that being made public means a lot to the shogi fans. Moreover, the internet, unlike devices such as newspapers or magazines, would take away the limit to the number of words able to be published.

It was an experiment of testing to what extent I could take advantage of the supremacy of two properties of the internet, "real-time and non-limiting."

In the future, every shogi fan should be able to feel at home the "scene of the game" through live commentary and broadcast (you would probably need to pay some money to do this though). Such future image is theoretically correct. However, in reality, if someone doesn't keep on doing whimsical human experiments in advance of times, though the technology may advance, no working application would come out, and therefore would end up not changing anything. This scenario occurs quite often; one important thing I learned in Silicon Valley. That I have come all the way to Niigata, tempted by various wonderful encountering and the results of played games, I thought I might as well do my best as to leading such human experiment.

 

“It’s part of the apprenticeship!"

Well, it now is "later days" so I’ll add onto the online commentary in chapter 2, making use of the strength of time.

"Are the two players, even aware of the fact that they are re-creating the game of Yamasaki - Sato. Or are they deliberately tracing the paths played in the past. Has challenger Habu guided Kisei Sato, having devised of a strategy in which could enlighten the future of shogi position derived from a game played and won by his current opponent three years ago. If there is any chance, I am willing to ask these questions to both of the players."(Chapter 3)

About this, Sato mumbled “I've played this move before” during the post-game analysis. It turns out that Sato did have in mind “Game of Yamazaki-Sato.” Then how about Habu?

After the post-game analysis, slightly before 10 p.m., I finished writing my last entry, posted it online and arrived at the site of the dinner party after the game, about an hour late. “Since you sat next to Sato-san yesterday, sit next to Habu-san today” urged the organizer and I sat down. After a while of chatting, I asked Habu whether he was aware of ‘Game of Yamazaki-Sato’.

Habu said that he was aware of it, and looked back at it saying, “Yamasaki-kun’s P-1e (39th move) was a bad move.”

In the context of writing

The strategy of Gote's Itteson Kakugawari (Bishop Exchange losing a move) is the latest strategy of modern shogi. Progress in advancement and development of this has occurred constantly, within time frames of days and months, or even this second may have resulted in some progress. Yet, challenger Habu seems to be guiding his opponent to this scenario position, that has not appeared in the past 3 years since the Yamasaki-Sato game. (Chapter 3).

I asked Habu, “why did this position not appear for three years?” and his answer to it was quite interesting.

He said, “the Gote (second mover) usually avoids this position and goes for a different variation. Even when talking of professional shogi, only about 2,000 games are played per year, so the same position doesn't appear that often. The thing is, since the Gote, influenced by the result of ‘Game of Akutsu-Katsumata’, plays a different move before this variation takes place, this position didn't appear. But I somehow did have the sense that Sato-san might play this position.”

The phrase, “only about 2,000 games are played per year,” was said with feeling, comparing it to the infinite possibilities shogi possesses. Remembering all the important game records and variations of the “2,000 games per year” and “20,000 games in 10 years,” and easily saying that 2,000 games is an “only” would make a normal person keep “Habu’s brain” and also the brains of the professional shogi players in awe.

The following morning after the game, right before we left Takashimaya altogether on a microbus, as I had some coffee with Sato at a table by the entrance of the hotel, I spoke to him about how Ryuoh Watanabe reacted in the anteroom to Sato’s move of K-4b (48th move in chapter 2). Sato said,

“Oh did Watanabe-kun say a bunch of stuff his own way? I wouldn’t be surprised. Hahaha. Well, K-4b was a move you usually wouldn’t come up with. But I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep on battling later on if I didn’t protect my gold…”

Sato smiling happily from his heart, while saying “oh did Watanabe-kun say a bunch of stuff his own way,” was impressive.

Sato and Watanabe have played each other in three title matches so far, but it appears that they have come to appreciate each other through their intense games. Watanabe has said before, “I was really surprised to see Sato-san crying after he had defeated me in a Ryuoh-sen game, even though the series hadn’t finalized yet”. Sato, around his 40’s, says he still does sometimes cry at home after a defeat due to him being ashamed of himself. He would answer “something almost as important as my life” to the question “what is shogi to you,” in a serious face too. He’s that type of person. Sato, I got to see real close in Niigata, conveyed to me strongly his ‘purity’ like that of a boy; cry for joy after victory, cry with grief after defeat.

One more impressive episode in my memory.

Inside the terribly tensed playing room was 3-dan Jo Tajima, of the Apprentice Professionals’ Association, in charge of keeping the game record, who showed crisp appearance. Not once did he break his seiza during the nine hours of playing time, yet he perfectly managed the recording and reading off the seconds. He stared at the board and kept on thinking of a move alongside the two players.

Sato, Tajima and I casually got to get together in the next morning after the game. I praised Tajima-kun for the great job he did, but giving him no chance to respond, Sato broke in seriously and sharply said,

“It’s part of the apprenticeship! If he couldn’t even do that, he would not be able to become a professional player. Playing professionally is way hard work.”

I was shuddered by Sato’s words. Something that modern Japan had left behind was condensed in the words, I thought.

The shogi world is passing on the beauties of Japanese culture deeply yet surely. And for that contains exhaustless elements that we must learn to live in the severe modern world. The productive time I spent during the three day stay in Niigata helped me realize this.

 

 To play shogi and To watch shogi”

From here in this chapter, I will ponder on the “joys of watching shogi.”

Sunday morning’s shogi program on the NHK educational channel, live broadcast of the Meijin title match and Ryuoh title match on satellite channels, and growing numbers of live broadcast of title games online; the experience of “watching” shogi surely is getting realistic. However, it is still common sense that shogi after all is a game to be “played” with two opponents sitting at the two ends of the board. Shogi being one’s “hobby” would usually mean that one ‘plays’ it. It is also thought that those that don’t play or those that aren’t good can’t understand what’s going on, on the board.

But come to think about it, it is weird that people think this way.

If someone “writes novels,” someone “reads novels.” If someone ‘plays music,” someone “listens to music.” If someone “plays baseball,” someone “watches baseball.” To those that say “reading novels,” “listening to music” or “watching baseball” is their hobbies, not a person would go up to them and say “how could you get entertained by a novel when you can’t write,” “how could you appreciate music when can’t play,” or “how could you be delighted by watching baseball when you can’t play.” But when it comes to shogi, people tend to say that “those that don’t play shogi can’t enjoy watching or understand shogi."

A couple years back, in January 2004, a TV program containing a long conversation between two Japanese major league baseball players, Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, was broadcasted. I was interested by Ichiro’s remarks on the 2003 World Series which he watched on TV, a series Matsui lined-up in;

It’s complicated. The batter and pitcher. Though it may look like the same way of attacking the batter, if what the pitcher’s thinking and the objective of the pitch different, though the pitcher may throw a strike on the first pitch with the same fastball on consecutive two at bats, the intention of the pitch different would make them two totally different ways of attacking. Those watching can’t get the hostility between the pitcher and the batter. It’s something that only the players get. The TV can’t express it. Oh this is how the watchers are sensing the game, I thought while watching the World Series. Taking a pitch in the middle easily, or hitting a ball foul, is made look easy on TV. But you can’t blame anyone. Asking for valid evaluations to the viewers is a little too much. It’s natural to have all kinds of evaluations and I’m thinking that I should just let them all go.

The baseball world Ichiro’s in, gets way too simplified when it appears on the TV screen. This is why the fans can “think they’re getting what’s going on at the baseball field and enjoy.” Thus baseball is a popular sport that holds tons of fans. Yet baseball in reality is way more complicated. Ichiro, knowing both the complicated viewpoint and simplified viewpoint, loves for the fans to get more of the complicated side that the TV doesn’t show, but is distressed by the reality that it isn’t easy for them.

The worry shogi world is going through is opposite to that of Ichiro’s. Ichiro’s mutter, “I’m thinking that I should just let them all go,” is way luxurious when comparing it to Akira Watanabe Ryuoh’s shout I referred to in chapter 2’s online commentary,

“For example when watching baseball. ‘Why’d you swing on that pitch!’ or ‘come on, catch that ball!’” (...) You know you couldn’t do it yourself but these words slip out of your mouth when watching. I want people to do the same thing with shogi. (…) I want people to enjoy shogi irresponsibly.” (Zuno Shobu [Brain Sport]).

No viewer can understand nor sense perfectly the complexity of any sport, including shogi. But in contrast to baseball, a sport that the viewers can ‘think they’re getting what’s going on at the baseball field and enjoy’ because the game ‘gets way too simplified when it appears on the TV screen’, shogi arouses the sense among viewers that ‘it is a sport way too sophisticated to enjoy.’

 

Describing shogi with rich words

The shogi world has been devoting itself to increasing the number of players, and to instructing the players to get better. This is because it appeared to people that if you couldn’t play shogi and moreover be good at it, then you couldn’t enjoy watching it. Well, this prejudice is half true, yet half false. If you didn’t know the rules of shogi, then you couldn’t enjoy watching. This part is absolutely true. But you don’t need to be all that good of that player to be able to enjoy watching.

What is it to be a ‘good player?’ It is the ability of being able to come up with the best or better moves in a certain position without using the help of someone or a guidebook. Therefore, the better players can enjoy watching shogi through searching for the best hand for the position lying in front of them. And to be able to do this, you must work a lot on shogi and practice a lot in actual games.

Thankfully, the minimum line you’d need to get over to enjoy watching shogi is way lower than this. You don’t have to be able to come up with the best move or the variation of sequent moves yourself. You just need to be able to understand the intention of moves when them taught to you.

Yet, this contains one prerequisite condition. That is that a game of shogi must be presented in the style of not just a game record but also with many notes added to it. In the case of TV broadcast or online hookup, this would be provided in the form of live explanation, and in the case of newspapers or magazines, commentary or shogi lecture. Rich words describing shogi is essential. In reverse, if that is provided, then the number of shogi watchers would exceed that of good shogi players. This condition will finally make the relation between playing and watching baseball and that of shogi equivalent. And once a person with aesthetic eyes is equipped with basic shogi knowledge and perfect commentary, he may well become a better watcher than one that actually plays well.

George Will’s Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball is a masterpiece explaining the essence of baseball. Citing from it,

A Sport like baseball, although a small universe of rule-regulated behavior, is actually a refreshing realm of diversity. The games are like snowflakes. They are perishable and no one is exactly like any other. But to see the diversities of snowflakes you must look closely and carefully. Baseball, more than any other sport, is enjoyed by the knowledgeable. The pleasures it gives to fans are proportional to the fans' sense of history. Its beauties are visible to the trained eye, which is the result of a long apprenticeship in appreciation. (......) Baseball is a sport for the literate, (......) It is also a mode of expression more suited to a literary than a pictorial culture. A baseball game is an orderly experience. (......) A baseball game is, like a sentence, a linear sequence; like a paragraph, it proceeds sequentially. But to enjoy it you have to be able to read it. Baseball requires baseball literary.

Shogi that arouses the sense among viewers that “it is a sport way too sophisticated to enjoy” rather than baseball that “gets way too simplified as it appears on the TV screen” seems to fit in better in the above quote.

A shogi game needs to be supplemented by many words.

This is the key to thinking about the “joys of watching shogi.”

The arrival of the internet age has eased the “way too sophisticated” shogi in many ways by adding words to it, leading to the possibility of expanding the variety of shogi fans.

 

The incredibly deep world surrounding a single game of shogi 

I’ve been thinking that the various works I’ve done, until today, had the role like that of “a canary in a coal mine.” That is, I always searched for the unknown, and as I was able to grasp the sense of it, I conveyed that sense to others. I wouldn’t want to die for taking in poison gas like a canary, but I find great meaning in carrying out an experiment of a new phenomenon on myself, and telling others, “if you come this far it’s dangerous” or “it’s safe up to here so come on in”. I moved here to Silicon Valley fifteen years ago, to a place almost no one in Japan knew of, and ever since have been telling people how interesting the place is. I also, with the arrival of the age of internet, tested how it would be like to live in the internet world, and conveyed the result in ways like “if you take care of at least this, then this world isn’t a place that scary” or “you will go through hard moments but the ‘hard’ only gets to this degree.” These are the roles I’ve been playing. 

The trial of writing a real-time online commentary was also a new kind of experiment, coloring a single game of shogi with numerous words. 

How great would it be for the shogi fans, if a professional shogi player saw my experiment and came to think “if this layman could do it then why couldn’t I do it,” and start writing a real-time online commentary, in earnest, which includes the actual players’ mentality and explanations on the moves played. This is what I had in mind while doing the experiment myself. After all, inside the professional players’ brains are incredibly rich storage compared to my impromptu “frame” I prepared on my private online space, and crucial knowledge, that is the logics to understanding the game of shogi in front of you. 

More than two years ago I wrote the following column. 

One time I went to watch a shogi title game, being invited by a newspaper company. 

The first day, I traveled together with the two competitors from Tokyo to the site of the title game, located in the countryside, and attended the “eve of game celebration.” The second day, I witnessed the start of the game and watched the progress of the game in the anteroom thereafter. There I had a look at the study on the game done by the professional players that came to visit. In the afternoon I participated in the big-board commentary done for the fans that came to watch, went back into the playing room to listen to the post-game analysis as the game terminated, and drank with the relaxed competitors at the “authorized personnel only after party.” The third day I traveled back to Tokyo. The wonderful three day trip was time of unordinary-supernatural space.

I’ve loved shogi ever since I was a kid. I couldn’t wait to read the daily shogi column on the newspaper. And even today, from Silicon Valley, I watch title matches online, and whenever asked what my hobby is, I always include ‘watching shogi’ in my answer. However, this one title match I watched completely shook my view on shogi. A single shogi game was surrounded by a way deeper world than I had imagined there to exist. 

In other words, the countless number of possible moves considered inside the anteroom, the limitless spreading latent possible moves, the deep insight presented by the competitors during the post-game analysis, all these elements that are crucial to the buildup of the “glamor of shogi” were just completely left behind, to the surprise of me, when the story of the match is condensed into the game record and into the post game commentary. 

How could the “glamor of shogi” on physically space limiting paper be expressed? This problem has been tried to answer to throughout in the shogi column on newspapers. Adding to this, from here on, we must think on how can we express the ‘glamor of shogi’ using the limitless peculiarity of the internet. It is a matter of urgency to find an answer to this, I thought, when seeking for furthermore spread of shogi. (The Mainichi Shimbun; 5th December, 2006).

What I wanted to inform in this column was simply the issue on the length of writings done on shogi. 

 

The synergism of the internet and the spreading of shogi

For example, since the circulation of a newspaper is at a large number, the cost per each character is expensive. Therefore, the restriction on word count is severe. Commentary on shogi written in newspapers were standing on this reality. But those that can figure out the gut of shogi with those limited number of words are only those that are pretty good at shogi. I thought that since the internet takes away all the cost relating restrictions, the mindset on limited words will be thus removed, and thorough passages and commentaries on shogi should be written. This is the very point I want to stress; that the internet and the idea of spreading shogi are synergistic.

When talking of shogi, the abundance of words is an essential element. If we talk to people with abundant words, even to those that aren’t that good at shogi, then the fascination, the glamour, and the enjoyment are conveyable.

To enjoy the limitless spread of possibilities lying ahead, move by move, and to allow your body to float in time. Being impressed by the reveling of the possibilities of moves the competitors were considering, totally exceeding that of the study's. Sensing the “beauty of equilibrium” from the first move to the last. Appreciating that “beauty of equilibrium” that is well in danger of breaking at any move. Finding the mystery of shogi, the ‘god-created game’ according to Yasumitsu Sato, inside the complicated yet refined positions produced by the process concerning “the beauty of equilibrium.” Going after the top professionals’ title matches’ trends in the lapse of several months. Following the results of your favorite player on the internet.

If shogi is to be surrounded by abundant words, then these enjoyments will be opened up to the “weak shogi players” and to the “non players.” And now, the organizers, such as newspaper companies, and the shogi world are seriously working on spreading shogi via the internet, and this action should keep on being pushed forward.

I did note ahead that it was Sato’s suggestion that I wrote an online commentary, but what was behind this suggestion was the following conversation between him and I, the two that were sharing the same concerns.

Sato: “The environment surrounding the shogi world has changed so much due to the invention of the internet. The interaction between us and the people used to be mainly the commentary on the newspapers, but only the shogi fans tend to read those. Today, with the introduction of live broadcasting, those that like shogi watch live. And, thankfully, also some of the people that don’t quite know shogi also watch now. I have a quite a few friends of this kind myself.

Things like, what a player had for lunch or how he spent the night before a title game, are starting to be written online, and more and more people are enjoying reading those entries. There’s more chances lying out there for those that don’t know shogi to get interested in it, and then they would get prompted to read the commentaries on newspapers. Multiplier effect could you call this? I think the range the shogi world is affecting now has widened. (……)”

Umeda: “The range of interest people have towards shogi is quite wide. (……) Interest toward people is crucial. Especially, through associations with players of the generations followed by Sato–Kisei and Yoshiharu Habu–double crown(Oza, Osho), it comes to me that, here in this place are the extremely high talented people gathering. The fans at the high end probably are attracted to the art of game records and the depth of the shogi game, but there are fans out there that are interested by the presence of the professional players itself. Say, for example, if kabuki only accepted fans that understood it to the depth, then it wouldn’t be able to fill in the theater. Shogi, it’s the same.”

(The Sankei Shimbun. Dated 1st January, 2008. An extraction from the full edition published on the MSN Sankei News.).

 

Come on out! ‘Kingoro Kaneko’ for the 21st Century 

A bit abrupt, but I’d like to introduce a 9-dan player, late Kingoro Kaneko (1902-1990), by saying,

“You couldn’t talk about the words surrounding shogi without bringing out this person.”

To be honest, I am a Kingoro Kaneko freak. 

Not too many people talk about Kaneko today, as it has been almost twenty years since he passed away, but he is a glorious figure of the history of shogi, by means of his passion, his achievement towards writing explanations and commentaries, the things essential to shogi. 

I believe that the age of the internet, which contains the chance of spreading shogi to a wider range of people and moreover globally, is just the time we need to learn from Kaneko’s passion and achievement. 

Loving shogi ever since I was a kid, I, at around the time I got into middle school, rather than playing shogi and competing, sought great excitement in appreciating the game records, made by top class professional players, as artistic work, and playing move by move accordingly by reading the explanations. Within me, “the joy from watching” and “the joy from reading” overcome “the joy of playing.”

The outstanding shogi explanations and commentaries, at that time, were the ones written by Kaneko. During my years of middle and high school, I indulged in Kaneko anthology. 

The person Kingoro Kaneko was an expert shogi player, in his youths, battling for Meijin. 

But that moment always comes, the moment that you suddenly can’t win anymore.  

I had figured a couple years back that after all I am a player that can no longer win. I thought that at least I wanted to become a player that could “lose to the fullest.” If I could “lost to the fullest” then I could love my opponent, love shogi, appreciate battle, and even end up loving my living. (Shogi Hyoron [Shogi Critique]. Vol.1, No.5. August, 1947.) 

Kaneko, summarizing the first half of his life in these fierce words, dedicated the rest of his life to enlightening people on shogi. Shortly after the Second World War terminated, he published the magazine “Shogi Hyoron” on his own. I have a few volumes myself, and the gush of his passion can be seen is the following words. 

I am aiming on systematizing beginners’ instruction through this magazine. Appreciating the relation between shogi and mind alongside providing basic shogi knowledge is my policy. The unique minds of “Kimura's shogi,” “Doi's shogi” and “Kaneko's shogi” can be seen in the game records. I am going to appreciate these through explaining the moves in order for the beginners to understand the techniques applied there. 

In other words, this magazine is a complete anthology of my appreciation on shogi. And I would like to write in the same mindset of when I usually talk to beginners. 

The policy is to make this a writing for improving as well as a writing of shogi appreciation. 

I will put all my energy into this. This way of living I can love. I hope for kind support. (Shogi Hyoron. Vol.1, No.1. March, 1947.) 

 

Shogi should be something that is watched by more people. Especially from a psychological point of view. The “meaning of a given move” is one scientific issue, but “why the player made that move,” in other words, the psychological move of the player before he decide on that move is another problem. Without synthesizing these two aspects, watching high-ranked players' shogi would never be complete. 

The author always failed to achieve that completion, but has never given up the intention to do so. If a treatise didn’t attempt this, then who else would do? This is the sense of responsibility I have. (……) A high level move can also be understood by beginners; if I can’t clear this goal then I’ve failed. (Shogi Hyoron. Vol.1, No.5. October, 1947.) 

If the greatest match of modern shogi was to be played next year or maybe the year after, would anyone professional player declare, like Kaneko, with gut that “I am aiming on systematizing beginners’ instruction”, “appreciating the relation between shogi and mind alongside providing basic shogi knowledge”, “I will put all my energy into this”, “shogi should be something that is looked at by more people”, “A high level move can also be understood by beginners, if I can’t clear this goal then I’ve failed”, and write a commentary like Kaneko, online, with the spirit of, 'if I didn’t attempt this, then who would?' This sense of responsibility I have.” I can’t stop desiring for this to be realized. 

I have an old book, Meijin Tsukada v.s. 8-dan Masuda, best out of five match” (January, 1949. The Asahi Shimbun Company.) in front of me right now. This best of five match was a match long-awaited by fans between Tsukada and Masuda, held by “Shukan Asahi (Weekly Asahi)” in 1948. 

The best part of this book is that each of the five games have written commentaries to it (the third match by Ryuzaburo Umehara), and moreover, have more than thirty pages each of, that is more than 28,000 words, detailed shogi explanations written by Kaneko. At that time, the greatest matches were appreciated with each of them colored with rich words worth of a single book. 

It is too plain to summarize the shogi boom, after World War II, as a phenomenon caused by the lack of entertainment; at the time when Japan was still very poor, even lacking supplies, the energy needed to personally start a new magazine and to publish a book containing the shogi 'best of xx-match' was incredibly larger than it is today, and without the existence of the retired professional players who dedicated his life to enlightening shogi, like Kaneko, there probably was no rise of the shogi boom. It shouldn’t be impossible that a powerful book of a kind be written for each modern title match. 

 

Kaneko’s enlightening spirit

Kaneko, after his attempt on starting a magazine, kept on writing a series titled “Kaneko Kyoshitsu (Classroom Kaneko)” on the monthly magazine “Modern Shogi”, for 37 years from 1950 (48 years old) to 1986 (84 years old). This was in fact Kaneko’s lifework. 

Kaneko captured shogi structurally, and when talking on a game of shogi, wrote in detail what speculation the competitors had in mind while playing the opening and what plot or spirit they had going into the game. 

In the opening the players think for a long time. If amateurs understood even slightly what the ponder was for, then they should be able to get close to the core of shogi, but in most cases amateurs are just simply shut off being told that “it is too hard for you to understand, and therefore you don’t have to”. But Kaneko never said that kind of thing. He tried to somehow logically explain the very difficult and delicate part of the game. 

If starting on an explanation of the latent moves, there’s not end to it. However, in Kaneko’s case, how he extracted the parts of the variations was astonishingly reasonable to the supposed, no so good at shogi, readers. When reading the variations, you would even feel pleasure because most of the questions that pop up in your mind on why the variation is fatal is explained. 

In the beginning where the pieces aren’t yet attacking each other, at what aim would the players compose their piece formations? What are the players aiming on then, in a black spot at the middle game? Preparing to realize the aim, preventing the opponents’ aim from realizing, choosing from several possible aims, miscalculating the aim, ……; even the amateurs can easily get what is being thought of by players during a game. And by describing all this precisely, reveals each players’ character. What’s the difference between Masuda and Oyama, what about Oyama and Nakahara, then what about Nakahara and Yonenaga; just like this. Under the belief that the characteristics of players can be seen during the game, and that the game records are the ways for the players to express themselves, Kaneko tried to describe these precisely. 

The post-game analysis done between the players are usually done in incomprehensible language. Why it is incomprehensible is that the ‘common base’ (database and logic) set up inside the brains of the two is way too big and deep. However, Kaneko had the passion to try to convey that incomprehensible shogi to amateurs. And for that his goal never stopped attempting. He never abandoned amateurs by saying to them that “you’ll get it all once you become a good player, so get better fast”. Kaneko’s enlightening spirit can be seen here. 

A legendary player, Kozo Masuda, wrote about Kaneko’s writings as following. 

“Kaneko as a player was our senior, and as you all know, in the early Showa-era he was well good enough to have fought for the Meijin-title, so he does have accurate grasp of the characteristics of his juniors. He also has kindness towards readers so he does explain moves very simply. 

Very simply but not just with the facts on surface. He is actually going deep inside. He says “don’t know” to what he actually doesn’t know. His attitude’s clear. Because he doesn’t allow perfunctory compromise. Writing must have been hell for Kaneko. This is how I feel, and see catechumen within him. 

These collected commentary works should be read by not just shogi fans but also those that don’t know much about shogi. They shake human heart. There is something lying there that awakens us.” (The Memorial Commentaries, Collection on the Games of Mejin-Titles. Koubunsha.) 

Kaneko’s commentaries have the power to make even Masuda comment “should be read by (……) those that don’t know much about shogi”, “they shake human heart (and) there is something lying there that awakens us”. 

 

“We need Kaneko-sensei in the modern shogi world as well” 

That the length of Kaneko’s commentaries was very long made me glad that his opinion is in harmony with mine. 

Living in a world of internet, where limit to word count no longer exists, you could write as lengthy of a commentary or explanation as you’d want, so I wrote “Come on out, Kingoro Kaneko for the 21st Century”. And as I kept on repeatedly writing the greatness of his works on my blog, it was Habu who first showed strong response. 

“I bet Kaneko-sensei never thought he’d revive in the age of internet. He must be really delighted. Modern shogi without doubt needs Kaneko-sensei.” 

Being told this by Habu, encouraged, the Kaneko attracted, me.  

The intention of Habu was not just that us shogi fans “need Kaneko-sensei” but also must have been that he himself, commenting quite a few times recently that “I was surprised by the wide vein of shogi”, “every piece on the board is crucial to shogi, even the lance and the pawn at the edge are important, I realized”, is in desire of a ‘modern Kingoro Kaneko’ who expresses simply to the public. 

I desire from my heart that a couple of ‘Kingoro Kaneko’s describing modern shogi and its players’ appears in some time. I am confident that with this would deepen the ‘joys of watching shogi’ and help widen the range of shogi fans. 

Shortly after entering 2008, I decided to collect every writings of the 37-year series “Classroom Kaneko”. First I searched, with the help of my friend, for a young guy that loves shogi and would help me. Then I asked him to go to the National Diet Library and copy the well over 5,000 paged Kaneko’s series by finding them all from the back issues of the magazine “Modern Shogi”, and had him send them all to Silicon Valley (12 kilograms in total!). I read the commentaries and explanations one by one, and continued on copying down the ‘cores’ of the writings. 

I think that watching shogi is something profound. 

Playing isn’t the only way of enjoying shogi, nor is becoming a good player the only goal for shogi fans. After all, ‘playing’ and ‘watching’, to me, are completely different things. The joys of watching is like that of appreciating art, and is to appreciate the amazement of shogi and the characteristics of the players. The joys from watching top class shogi, is to appreciate the amusement of the game and the beauty of the game as a whole, through the art created as a result of the two players’ playing their best moves at each complicated position. 

We are living in a very busy modern world, and cannot spend unlimited time on our hobbies. To spend the limited time on what feature of your hobby is a difficult question. How much I may like shogi, there’s the problem that ‘I can’t watch if I play’. Well, actually, once I retire from the business world and get to spend all the time in the world on my hobby, then I might get the chance to pursue the ‘joy of playing’. But for now, I think I’ll pursue the ‘joy of watching’ as a ‘non-playing shogi fan’ for the mean time.

 

Next > Chapter 4 

 

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