My master is an eccentric. ...And perhaps I realized from the very beginning that his mind is not quite right.
While I am engrossed in playing multiple simultaneous matches, he plays ten games at once, claiming he is bored, all while positioning monitors to watch my games right beside him.
Does he store all that in his mind? As soon as one of my games ends, he starts critiquing moves—telling me this one was bad or that one was good. However, his words rarely stick while I am still preoccupied with unfinished games. He seems to sense this from my curt replies; later, he sets up the board with the records of games where I performed poorly to explain the variations and alternative paths.
For me, it is merely one game out of dozens. If the position is placed before me, I can recall my thought process at the time. My master, however, plays hundreds of games in the time it takes me to play dozens. Yet, he reproduces game records he never even played himself with absolute precision.
Witnessing that scene, I initially assumed he possessed a perfect photographic memory. But I soon noticed that he frequently forgets people's names and historical facts—though his forgetfulness is mostly limited to those he has met only once.
When my thoughts reached this point, I recalled what he told me at the start: "Humans do not forget; they simply fail to retrieve." My master has evidently found a method to retrieve everything related—and only related—to Shogi.
I shared this deduction with him, and he confirmed I was correct but insisted I need not concern myself with it yet. I suspect this is an obstacle waiting for me after clearing the "second hurdle" he speaks of. When I asked, 「How many hurdles are there, then?」, he replied that there are five so far. It seems the road ahead is still long.
As I continued my intensive simultaneous play, I grasped the secret to maintaining focus. I became able to "lightly read" moves without requiring deep concentration. Once I realized this, my win rate increased slightly, and the simultaneous games became easier to manage. I believe that as my capacity for this "reading without focus" expands, I will grow stronger.
People claim Shogi software has not yet caught up to humans because my master won the "Cyber Shogi War." However, I believe most professionals began to realize the truth after that victory: my master possesses overwhelming power.
That said, when he loses, he truly loses. While starting with a disadvantaged opening strategy is his norm, when he actually drops a game, there is no subsequent redemption. I once asked him sharply, "Why do you lose on purpose?" His answer was as follows:
「For a player, the most enjoyable moment in Shogi is winning by a landslide. However, for the spectator, the true thrill lies in battles that teeter between victory and defeat until the very last breath.」
No one finds pleasure in watching a competition where the outcome is foregone. As Sora Ginko piles up victory after victory, voices have begun clamoring for her to lose quickly. Some even claim that women's Shogi has become dull because of "that creature," arguing that the title of "Strongest Woman" has effectively already been awarded to Sora Ginko.
My master's style, on the other hand, is wildly popular. He begins with a strategic disadvantage in the opening, then unleashes a barrage of brilliant moves in the middlegame to close the gap, finally turning the tables at the very end. On the rare occasions he loses, fans comment that the "comeback attempt was incomplete." ...To fall into a strategic trap and still win is proof that there is no such thing as a "failed strategy." Making a knowledgeable audience believe in such a scenario is undoubtedly far more difficult than simply winning outright.
Finally, this master challenged for a title. The title was "Shogi Emperor" (Kitei), and the opponent was Shinokubo Taishi. Despite his youth, Taishi possessed skills that ranked him among the top professionals in the Kanto region. If my master were a normal person, he naturally would have left me to my own devices to focus on the title match.
But my master is an eccentric.
After breezing through the first and second rounds, he stopped by my house to talk at length about that day's games and the atmosphere of the title competition. Then, the day before the third round, he accompanied me to Tokyo because it was my first tournament.
I know he hopped on a plane and headed back the moment I won the "Mynavi" qualifiers. While wearing a disguise, he told me a single word—"Congratulations"—and slipped a note into my hand. It read: "You must testify that your Master is currently on Awaji Island." I was a bit dumbfounded, but I followed his instructions. It is certainly unusual for a "Master" to come to a place like that just to cheer someone on.
In the end, my master claimed the title of "Shogi Emperor." He seemed to get much busier after winning the title, yet our practice matches never decreased, as my Shoreikai exam was approaching.
During that Shoreikai exam, I faced Sora Ginko in the second stage. Just as my master predicted, it was a "Lance Drop" handicap match. However, I hesitated to use the Lance Drop strategies I had hastily learned. Sora Ginko had surely studied countermeasures to those strategies for far longer than I had practiced them. So, I swung my rook and fortified myself in an "Anaguma" castle.
When she saw my Anaguma defense, I imagined I could hear her grinding her teeth. Using a Ranging Rook with Anaguma in a Lance Drop match is not unheard of. However, I later learned from my master that executing it suddenly is difficult, and it is a formation rarely seen. He praised my skillful maneuvering of the major pieces when he reviewed my play.
After reviewing the records from the first and second exams, my master thought for a moment and advised me to start at the 2-kyu rank in the Shoreikai. His reasoning was that accumulating losses immediately after joining would negatively impact my playing style later. He said that if I truly possessed skills equivalent to, or even exceeding, 1-kyu, it would be better to start from 2-kyu.
...Deep down, I feel my master is being overprotective. Honestly, I wanted to start at 1-kyu. But if Master says 2-kyu is better, then so be it. I became convinced of this choice the moment I first stepped into the players' room.
Konogi Sota, a Shoreikai 1-dan holder. My master had predicted I would face him in the exam, but that never happened. So, when I was offered the room's famous "10-second Shogi" challenge, I could not ignore it. Even though he was the opponent my master had strictly warned me about, I thought at the time that I could win.
The reality, however, was a defeat, even though he conceded the first move to me. Had it not been a "10-second" match, the result might have changed, but then the entire flow of the game would have been different too, so there is no point saying that now. A loss is a loss. When I try to read the game, the pieces move automatically in my head. However, the quality of that reading and the moves I hypothesize are still weak.
There must be many like Konogi Sota in the Shoreikai. When my master heard the record of my match against Konogi, he told me that simply keeping up and getting that close to his level was sufficient. But his words only ignited an unbearable frustration in my heart.
My name is Yashajin Tenai. Shoreikai member, rank 2-kyu. My current goal is to crush every member of the Shoreikai. And someday, I will defeat my master, the strongest in Shogi history...
...And yet, this Master is currently smiling and heaping praise on the Meijin, despite the fact that the Meijin lost to him three times in a row in their title match. Isn't that right? He truly seems to have lost his mind.
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