The 81-Square Universe blog

A new shogi organization in the United States has just been launched: ShogiUSA. ShogiUSA is an organization founded to address the needs of shogi players in the United States. By providing a place for American shogi players can come together to discuss and play shogi, as well as check up on the latest American shogi events and tournaments, and promoting shogi to potential new players, ShogiUSA aims to create a strong base for shogi in the United States.

For more information, visit ShogiUSA’s Website.

On March 11, the Touhoku region of Japan was struck by an 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake, triggering a 10 meter high tsunami that has been wreaking havoc on the country. With thousands dead and injured, and millions without power, food, or water, Japan is in a dire state and will need all the help it can get to recover.

The 81-Square Universe is completely dedicated to supporting the relief efforts in Japan, and members have been making contributions to charity organizations such as the Red Cross. We sincerely ask that everyone who has at least $10 or ?1,000 to spare makes a donation to a charity organization. Every dollar will positively benefit the Japan disaster relief.

Many of our close friends and members of the shogi community live in Japan, and their homes need all the help they can get right now.

Donation links:

[Google] 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

[American Red Cross] Donation Funds

We are all wishing well and praying for everyone in Japan. Stay safe.

-hirohiigo

Ladies Professional player Madoka Kitao, Ladies Shodan, will be playing teaching games with amateur players on 81 Dojo on April 3, 2011, at 06:00 UTC.  Ms. Kitao and Hidetchi will also be organizing a Ustream broadcast of the games together.  You can apply to participate in this thread on the forums: Teaching Game Event by Woman Pro. Madoka KITAO.

We are very excited to have Ms. Kitao participate on 81 Dojo!

We’ve just launched a brand new sub-site of The 81-Square Universe, Shogi News,where we will be giving you up to date news on what’s going on in the Shogi World, both related and unrelated to The 81-Square Universe.  From title matches to shogi promotion, we’ll give you everything you need to know to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the Shogi World.  Be sure to check it out.

-hirohiigo

Now that 81 Dojo is up and running, with nearly all of its core functions ready and going, the next step is to make it easily accessible to the whole world.  Hidetchi has introduced the 81 Dojo Multilingual Project on the forums. Currently, 81 Dojo supports English and Japanese, but with your help, you can play 81 Dojo in your own language as well! Just check out his thread on the forums and it has instructions on how you can participate.

As always, we greatly appreciate all contributions to shogi popularization.  Good luck, and thanks for all the help!

-hirohiigo

It’s been one year since we dove into the 81-Square Universe together. On September 11, 2009, 1059860 and I decided that the Internet needed an English shogi community that was better-structured than Shogi-L (we still love Shogi-L, though!), so we founded The 81-Square Universe on Heavenforum. You can access the first version of our forums here. Since its founding, The 81-Square Universe has grown to heights 105 and I could not have dreamed. One month and over a hundred wonderful members later, I made the decision to move The 81-Square Universe to its own domain, and we’ve only kept moving forward. With the opening of Shogipedia and 81 Dojo, and lots of help from our members, The 81-Square Universe is very close to being the definitive source for shogi information in English, and we have to thank everyone who comes here every day for that. Thanks for making the “dive” with us, and we’re looking forward to another great year at the 81-Square Universe!

-hirohiigo

New pages have been added to the website. The Merchandise, Shogi Sets, and Shogi Books page have all been created. Be sure to check them out.

-hirohiigo

Today (Feb. 3), the 8th game of the ranking league for the Meijinsen was played. The results are as follows:

* Takahashi 9-dan defeated Inoue 8-dan
* Kimura 8-dan defeated Moriuchi 9-dan
* Fujii 9-dan defeated Satou 9-dan
* Miura 8-dan defeated Tanigawa 9-dan
* Maruyama 9-dan defeated Gouda 9-dan

With a score of 1 win 7 losses, Yasumitsu Satou 9-dan will drop from A-Class to B1-Class.

With a score of 6 wins and 2 losses, Hiroyuki Miura 8-dan is in the top spot in A-Class.

Hey everyone,

The 81-Square Universe has launched a new blog, Ki-ou Blog @ 81-Square Universe. We’ll be covering news of the 35th Ki-ou Title Match there, so be sure to check it out.

Also, the 81-Square Universe will be hosting a live group analysis of all the Ki-ou games in our official IRC channel while the games are being played. Be sure to participate! The IRC info is:

Server: irc.purplesurge.com
Channel: #81squareuniverse

-hirohiigo