This is Kana Satomi. She's a 16-year old high school student who just won the national title for best female shogi player in the world. She beat out 39-year old defending champ Ichiyo Shimizu in the Okayama tournament on Sunday. The youngest girl ever to win this title was Naoko Hayashiba, who was 14 when she kicked everyone's butt in 1982.
Previously, I blogged about Beni Takeyama, an expert shogi player who is only eight years old! She is probably still making her way up the ranks of Japanese chess. Or maybe she's way too young to compete.
Interesting that there seem to be a number of young women who excel at shogi, compared to, say, the prodigies one sees about Western chess which mostly seem to be male. I also recall a show from the 90s (can't recall if Fuji or TBS) called Futarikko, about a set of twins in Osaka, one of whom was an up-and-coming shogi expert.
Posted by: Tadao-chan | November 26, 2008 at 05:32 PM