14-year-old excites country with record Japanese chess debut
TOKYO — A 14-year-old boy is taking his country by storm with a record-breaking start to his pro career in the Japanese version of chess.
Ninth-grader Sota Fujii broke a 30-year-old record this week with his 29th win in a row in the game of “shogi.” His face was plastered across front pages of major newspapers Tuesday, getting bigger display than the bankruptcy filing of Japanese air bag maker Takata.
Shogi is similar to chess, though players can reuse captured pieces as their own, making it more complex. In competitions, they kneel on the floor of a traditional tatami-mat room and play on a thick wooden block that is the board.
Fujii defeated 19-year-old opponent Yasuhiro Masuda after a more than 11-hour battle — with lunch and dinner breaks — that ended Monday night.