On February 7, 95-year-old Sugiuchi Shouko Yadan, the world's oldest active chess player, defeated 31-year-old male chess player Masatoshi Kikuchi in japan's 47th Chess Jihadani Qualifier, winning a long-lost match after 795 days. Sugito Sugita entered the dan in 1942, and this year for a full eighty years, she equaled the career record of her husband, Masao Suganai, in the ninth dan.
Suzuko Sugine is in the competition in 2021.
Sugito Sugine's last official victory was on December 5, 2019, when she defeated Masaaki Fukui in the 46th Masters Qualifiers. Since then, the world has undergone great changes, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has been raging for more than two years, Sugito Sugine while preventing the virus infection, while insisting on participating in the game, from the age of 93 to nineteen consecutive defeats, to 95 years old to defeat the younger opponents of more than sixty-four years old, the light of life hope and miracle into the chess field.
On September 9, 2021, Suzuko Sugineuchi and Fukuoka Aerona, born in 2005, pre-match guessed. Fukuoka said: I have seen Sugiuchi's chess game before, and she is also very good at ai.
Sugiuchi was born on March 6, 1927, formerly known as Honda Shouko, and the two younger sisters, Sachiko Honda and Mitsuko Nan (formerly known as Keiko Honda), were both professional masters who were famous for a while, and were called the "Three Honda Sisters". Sugiuchi Studied under Fumiko Kita, the "mother of the Japanese Go world", and was valued by Kitani Shigeru, Wu Qingyuan and other seniors when she was a teenager, and after entering the section, many well-known people in the Japanese political and business circles prepared a support association for her, and since then her position in the Japanese Go community has been very important.
Group photo of Sugita and his wife after their new marriage.
In 1954, Sugito Suginechi married Masao Sugine, the "god of Go", and walked hand in hand for sixty-three spring and autumn seasons. In the forty years from 1953 to 1994, Suzuko Sugine won the women's championship ten times, and the final opponents from Yue Ito, born in 1907, to Izumi Kobayashi, who was born in 1977, and became the world's first women's eight dan in 1983, during which time she did not participate in the competition for ten years because of taking care of her family.
Mr. and Mrs. Suganai played chess together in their later years, taken in 2017.
In the 21st century, Mr. and Mrs. Suganai continue to break their records of the oldest player and chess player. In November 2017, at the age of 97, Masao Suganai passed away, and Sugito Sugita commemorated her husband with a hand-written waka at the farewell ceremony: "Living in a pure world, dying in a clear winter." In March 2019, Sugito Sugine reached the 38th women's Honinbo Tournament at the age of 92, setting a record for the longest in history, saying in an interview after the game: "My husband is also an active chess player at the end of his life, and I think I must also do my best to play." ”
At the age of 92, she played in the women's Benyinfang tournament and truly devoted her life to Go.
In 2019, Sugito Sugine defeated the young man Mizogami Zhiqin Kudan in January, causing the chess community to marvel, and in December reversed the seventeen-year-old ancient chess research expert Masaaki Fukui. However, in 2020, the epidemic has changed people's lives, and Japanese Go, which has not been interrupted by atomic bombs, has also pressed the pause button. In 2020 and 2021, Suzuko Suganai played seven and eleven sets each, and suffered a rare total defeat.
Sugiuchi's victory over Fukui's game shows her soft and tough style of chess from the winning curve.
In 2021, Sugito Sugine met Yokota Nichino Hatsudan, Osuka Seiryō Hatsudan, and Fukuoka Kentaro in the competition, who were seventy-six, seventy-seven, and seventy-eight years younger, respectively, and second only to 96-year-old Sugine Masao in 2016 against 16-year-old Ryuhei Onishi. Elderly and young children compete in the same rules as equal professionals, a scenario that can only be seen in the Game of Go.
The age difference is as high as eighty and seventy-eight years old. Ryūhei Onishi and Aktaro Fukuoka are both post-00s, and the rivals of the Suganai couple span the century.
The long wait for 795 days and nineteen consecutive defeats did not consume the fighting spirit of a 95-year-old man, nor did it extinguish her desire to win. Affected by the epidemic and artificial intelligence, the Japanese chess industry has changed frequently in the past two years, suzuko Sugine has been concentrating on sitting on the plate for six or seven hours every time, and she must wear a mask throughout the whole process, and bring her own bento at noon to eat a simple meal in the chess academy. It is not easy for young chess players to adapt to such a transformation, let alone ninety-year-olds.
On May 20, 2021, there was an oolong incident in the competition against Suzuko Sugine. Since the Japanese professional chess game is the winner's own record of the results, the reverse victory of The Mizuma Shunbun Hachidan wrote the "naka" character representing the middle game victory in front of the opponent's name, and this game of chess is indeed Sugiuchi's long-term dominance, until the Network report came out, Mizuma realized the mistake and corrected it the next day.
In 2020, the Japan Chess Academy cancelled the live broadcast of Sugito Sugino's matches, and the game photos circulated only until September 2021. From the photos, it can be perceived that Suzuko Sugiuchi's love for life is not only Go, hairstyles and clothing are meticulously showing taste, and there is no way to see any dragon clock aging.
But Sugito Sugiuchi is like every stage of her life, studying hard, experiencing war, taking care of her family, leading the chess world, the impact of her descendants, the departure of relatives... Still diligently, as she put it, "I hope to improve a little more", ushered in an exciting victory in a difficult environment. Chess players who have seen Sugito Sugita play said, "I was touched by Mr. Suganai's straight posture and unhurried second reading." Contemporaries have all left the field, and the 95-year-old is still obsessively seeking victory, which is the spirit of endless life, hard work, and never give up.