KANAGAWA - Sota Fujii successfully defended his Oi title for a seventh consecutive year after defeating fellow 24-year-old Takumi Ito in Game 6 of the best-of-seven series, winning the match 4-2.
The sixth game of the Oi Championship began on September 8 at Motoyu Jinya in Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture, with Fujii, who currently holds six major titles, needing one more victory to retain the crown against Ito, a two-title holder from the same school year.
Play resumed on September 9 after Fujii's sealed move from the previous day was opened.
Following an intense battle, Fujii secured victory after 140 moves, giving him four wins against Ito's two and completing his seventh consecutive Oi title defense.
Fujii's next title match will be the best-of-seven Ryuo Championship, which begins on October 9.
Japan's professional shogi system is built around eight major title championships, each held annually. Unlike a conventional knockout tournament in which the reigning champion enters alongside everyone else, most title competitions separate the defending titleholder from the qualification process. Professional players spend much of the year competing in preliminary tournaments or leagues to determine a single challenger, who then faces the reigning champion in a best-of-five or best-of-seven title match.
This structure means that a player such as Sota Fujii does not have to win the entire Oi qualifying competition every year. As the reigning Oi, he waits for the qualification process to produce a challenger. The two players then contest the championship itself, with the winner becoming or remaining Oi.
The Oi Championship dates to 1960, when Yasuharu Oyama defeated Masao Tsukada 4-1 to become the inaugural Oi. Oyama, one of the dominant figures in postwar shogi, went on to play a central role in establishing the prestige of the competition during its early years.
The Oi title match is a best-of-seven contest, meaning the first player to win four games takes the championship. It is traditionally played during the summer, with games staged at hotels, traditional inns and other prominent venues around Japan.
Each championship game is played over two days. Unlike shorter professional games, the players receive substantial thinking time, allowing extremely deep preparation and analysis. At the end of the first day's play, the player whose turn it is records the next move without revealing it to the opponent. The move is sealed and kept secure overnight.
On the morning of the second day, the envelope is opened and the sealed move is played on the board. Play then continues until one player resigns or the game otherwise reaches a conclusion. This explains the reference to Fujii's "sealed move" being opened before play resumed on September 9.
The two-day system is one of the defining traditions of the major long-form shogi championships. Players must manage not only the position on the board but also their limited thinking time over two days, deciding when a position warrants spending an hour or more on a single move and when a quicker decision is necessary.
A seven-game championship does not necessarily require all seven games. Once either player reaches four victories, the series ends. Fujii's September 9 victory therefore ended the 2026 Oi Championship after Game 6 because he had established an unbeatable 4-2 lead.
Fujii's seven consecutive Oi championships mean he has retained the title every year since first winning it. Consecutive defenses are particularly significant in shogi because every year brings a new qualification cycle and a new challenger who has already survived months of competition against other leading professionals.
The Ryuo Championship that follows is another best-of-seven competition, but its route to selecting a challenger is considerably more elaborate.
Established in 1987, the Ryuo Championship developed from the earlier Judan, or Tenth Dan, competition, which itself had roots in tournaments organized by the Yomiuri Shimbun after World War II. The Japan Shogi Association describes the Ryuo as one of the highest-ranking titles in professional shogi, and its prize money is the largest among Japan's professional shogi competitions.
The competition is unusual because it operates its own six-division ranking system.
Virtually the entire professional field participates, together with a limited number of women's professionals, an apprentice player from the professional training system and selected amateurs. Participants are divided into Groups 1 through 6. Group 1 contains the strongest performers within the Ryuo system, while players can rise or fall between groups depending on their results.
Each group holds its own ranking tournament. Success can therefore have two consequences: a player can move upward in the Ryuo rankings and, if the result is strong enough, earn a place in the final tournament that determines the challenger.
The final challenger tournament consists of 11 players. Group 1 receives five places, Group 2 receives two, while the winners of Groups 3, 4, 5 and 6 receive one place each. This gives players from every level a theoretical route to the title while giving a substantial advantage to those who have already established themselves in the higher groups.
The structure also creates the possibility of a dramatic run by a lower-ranked player. A player who begins in Group 6 can win that group, enter the final tournament, defeat higher-ranked opponents and eventually earn the right to challenge the reigning Ryuo.
The final stage of the challenger tournament culminates in a best-of-three challenger-deciding match. The winner earns the right to face the reigning Ryuo in the championship series.
The Ryuo title match is then played as a best-of-seven series, with four victories required to win the championship. Each player receives eight hours of thinking time per game, and the games are played over two days using the same sealed-move tradition seen in the Oi Championship.
The Ryuo series normally takes place from October through December, with games staged at different locations around Japan. The changing venues have become part of the spectacle of major shogi title matches, with temples, historic buildings, luxury hotels and traditional inns frequently serving as settings.
The 2026 Ryuo Championship begins on October 9 and is scheduled for as many as seven games through December 17 if the series reaches a deciding Game 7. Fujii will defend the title against Shinichiro Hattori, with the opening game scheduled for October 9 and October 10 at the Cerulean Tower Noh Theatre in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
The Ryuo also has an unusually important relationship with professional ranking and promotion. Strong performances in the competition can contribute directly to a player's promotion through the professional dan ranks. For example, challenging for the Ryuo title or reaching Group 1 can qualify a player for promotion to seventh dan, while winning the Ryuo title can satisfy one of the conditions for promotion to eighth dan. Winning the title twice is one route to ninth dan, the highest regular professional rank.
The tournament's modern history began with the creation of the Ryuo title in 1987, but its lineage extends further back. Yomiuri established the All-Japan Championship in 1948 and introduced the Kudan, or Ninth Dan, title competition in 1950. The event later became the Judan Championship before being reorganized and expanded into the Ryuo Championship in 1987.
The name Ryuo means "Dragon King," which is also the name of the promoted rook in shogi. The title was created as a prestigious modern championship capable of standing alongside the historic Meijin title, whose roots stretch much further back in Japanese shogi history.
For spectators unfamiliar with professional shogi, the Oi and Ryuo competitions can therefore be understood as two overlapping contests. One competition takes place throughout the year among potential challengers, while the highly visible title series at the end pits the survivor of that process against the reigning champion.
This system makes holding several titles simultaneously extraordinarily demanding. A player such as Fujii must defend different championships at different times of the year while also competing in the qualification stages of other competitions for titles he does not currently hold. Preparation for one title series can therefore overlap with games connected to another.
There are currently eight major professional titles: Ryuo, Meijin, Oi, Oza, Kio, Osho, Kisei and Eio. Each has its own qualifying structure, schedule and match format, but all follow the central principle that a challenger must emerge through competition before attempting to take the title from its holder.
The result is a championship system in which maintaining dominance can be as difficult as achieving it. Every title must be defended again the following year against a challenger who has fought through a fresh field of opponents, making long consecutive title streaks such as Fujii's seven-year Oi run one of the clearest measures of sustained supremacy in professional shogi.
Source: CBC
