Sōta Fujii
Sōta Fujii ( Japanese 藤井 聡 太 Fujii Sōta ; born July 19, 2002 in Seto ) is a Japanese shogi player who became the youngest professional shogi player in the history of this sport on September 3, 2016 at the age of 14 years and two months.
Fujii learned Shogi from his grandmother at the age of five. In the first year of elementary school, he attended a special Shogi class. Starting in 2012, he went to Shorei-kai, a special class at the Japan Shogi Association (JSA), to try to become a professional player. He is currently in his third year of middle school in Aichi Prefecture and has rewritten the minimum age record for new professional players after 62 years. Other players who turned professional in middle school are Hifumi Katō , Kōji Tanigawa (* 1962), Yoshiharu Habu and Akira Watanabe (* 1984).
The previous record holder was Hifumi Katō (* 1940), who turned professional in 1954 at the age of 14 years and seven months. Katō is now a 9 dan and was the oldest active professional player before retiring in June 2017.
In April 2016, Fujii was awarded the third Dan and on October 1st, 2016, also as the youngest player, the 4th Dan, which corresponds to a professional rank for men. The reason for this award was that he had played the 18th and 19th game of the 59th Shōreikai 3-Dan League (April to September 2016).
He is also the first Shogi professional player born in the 21st century .
The first professional game, which he played on December 25, 2016 against Hifumi Katō, he won.
On June 26, 2017, he set a new record by winning twenty-nine consecutive games at the start of his career. So far, Yoshiyuki Matsumoto (* 1971) and Masakazu Kondō (* 1971) have been record holders. They had won ten games in a row in 1995 and 1996 respectively. With this victory he left Hiroshi Kamiya , 8th Dan (* 1961), who set a record of twenty-eight victories in a row in 1987 - but not at the start of his career - behind him. With his win against Kenjiro Abe (7th Dan) on December 13, 2018, he became the youngest player to win 100 professional shogi games.
He is a student of Masataka Sugimoto (7th Dan). His JSA player ID is 307.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mainichi ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ NHK World ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ this.kiji.is (English)
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fujii, Sōta |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 藤井 聡 太 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese shogi player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 19, 2002 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Seto (Aichi) |