Message from organizers of the 2009 US Shogi championship San Francisco
Theodore Hsu
Dear head of each US shogi branch and all other shogi fans:
As informed earlier, 2009 US Shogi Championship will be held in San
Francisco on April 10, 11 and 12?2009. Attached are official event
announcement and invitation in English and Japanese. We would appreciate it
if you would please forward them to your branch members and any other shogi
fans who may have interest in attending.
We outline some of highlights of this year event as follows:
1.Participating professionals
Though the attached announcement lists Ishikawa 7dan, Nozuki
7dan, Namekata 8dan, Nishio 5dan, some more professionals may join the
event. The total number of the professional who will attend the event may
be more than 8 which was the number of professionals who actually attended
our last US Shogi Championship held in SF in 2004. With cooperation of such
professionals, there will be more opportunities for everyone to get lessen
shogis from professionals, and we can hold interesting events open to
public. We will inform you when all participating professionals are
determined.
2.Pre-Tournament Reception
Japanese Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco
("Consulate") kindly supports this year tournament. Consulate will kindly
hold a reception at Consulate General's residence (the Residence") to
welcome the shogi players who will participate the tournament as well as
shogi professionals from 6PM to 8PM on April 10, 2009. We hope as many of
you as possible will join the reception. The Residence is located about 10
minutes drive from the tournament site. SF members will provide
transportation between the tournament site and the Residence. Please advise
me of the name and address of those who would like to join the reception
because we need to inform Consulate such specific information well in
advance. Please get together at the registration desk between 5:30 and 5:50
so that SF members can give you a drive together to the Residence.
3.JAL Award
Japan Airline kindly agrees to provide a Japan-US round trip
economy class ticket as a special award to a winning champion of A class.
4.Consolation Tournament
We will have a consolation tournament in both of A class and B
class. All the players who have lost the first game on the second day will
constitute a consolation tournament group. The player who has survived the
tournament will be ranked as the third place equivalent of each class and
receive the third place award. With this program, every player will be able
to play at least two official games on the second day.
5.Events Open to Public
As in the 2004 US Championship held in SF, this year again, this
tournament will be held as part of SF Cherry Blossom Festival. As such, one
of the purposes of the event is to introduce shogi as a valuable Japanese
culture to people who come to the festival. To achieve the purpose, we plan
to have some events open to public in which professionals will provide free
lessen games to people including beginners and children. As part of such
efforts, we will hold a professionals blindfold game with obankaisetsu
(professionals' discussion and analysis on a game with a large shogi board)
and obankaisetsu for a final game of A class as events open to public. The
site for such public event is in front of a Kinokuniya bookstore at the
second floor of Kinokuniya building which is part of Japan Center. We will
appreciate your understanding and cooperation for such public events though
we are afraid that this arrangement may cause some inconvenience to the
players participating the tournament.
The due date for application to the tournament is March 25. Please contact
me for application. We hope as many of you as possible will participate the
tournament. we are looking forward to seeing and playing shogi with you.
Nori Shimoda
SF Shogi Club