私の趣味（三羽）2010.2

My hobby

One of my hobbies is shogi.Shogi is called Japanese chess.

They say the root of both shogi and chess is the same. The origin was in India. The thing gone to west is chess and the thing gone to east is Japanese shogi. There are many games like shogi in the world. Shogi has only future different other games. It is the rule of reuse of a piece. Mr. Izawa,author of 逆説の日本史, said shogi is Japanese culture.

There are over 100 professional shogi players in Japan. They play shogi for their life. Some top players get over 100,000,000 yen as annual income. There are seven official major title matches. I like watching these title matches on the TV or the Internet. These title matches hold at various places whole of Japan. The game goes on TATAMI in a Japanese-style room.

When the match hold in Aichi prefecture I go to the hotel where is playing the match if possible. For example, I've visited at Gamagori for watching the shogi match. It is very happy time for me to watching shogi match. In that time, I can forget all other things. Of course I can't understand why the players move such that. But I like thinking of what I don't understand. But happily, another professional shogi player explain the match as a commentator. It is useful to understand the meaning of the move. But the commentator said every time that "Two men playing the game are most thinking persons about the game."

Feb. 13 2010
Sampa Shiro Jiro