Sota Fujii reflects on the game in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo (Photo by Yoshinori Saito) (Sankei Digital Co., Ltd.)

Sota Fujii Eio wins his third consecutive championship with a stunning attack at Kanda Myojin, a power spot in the middle of Tokyo / Shogi

The youngest Meijin player in history and the winner of the Meijin Tournament, the first in history to win 7 Meijin titles, both started off with whitewashes, giving momentum to their bid to become the first player in history to win all 8 Meijin titles. The second round was held on the 23rd in Nagoya. It will be the first local game of the year for Eio Fujii, who lives in Seto City, Aichi Prefecture, and if he wins, he will win his third consecutive championship. With the temperature in Tokyo reaching 25 degrees Celsius, the second summer day this year, Eio Fujii won a heated game.

In the beginning and middle of the game, I had a lot of trouble, but in the end, I got into a good shape and it became easier to play," said Fujii in his usual calm tone of voice. The Kanda Myojin Shrine is where Tokugawa Ieyasu, who loved shogi, is said to have prayed for victory when he won the Battle of Sekigahara. This is the third consecutive year that the tournament has started with a white star. This was the first defense of the year in which Eio Fujii, a member of the iaibikusha party, faced a player of the furibikusha party for the first time in a title match. In the "battle of the division of power," Fujii was the first to make a move.

The sponsor was Fujii's Fujiya, and after nourishing himself with "Chocolat Tart with plenty of strawberries" in the morning and "Strawberry Daifuku with green tea from a confectionery shop" in the afternoon, he extended his lead by making precise moves. He played one minute shogi before Sugai 8dan, but he forced Sugai to resign the game. In the ongoing 7-ban Meijin Tournament, he won first against Akira Watanabe (38) on the 5th and 6th of this month. The Meijin Tournament is the longest of the two, lasting 9 hours each, and the Eio Tournament is the fastest, lasting 4 hours each. On the day of the tournament, he used up all of his time and played only one minute of shogi, so he said, "I will try to improve my game including time allocation. He is on his way to winning his seventh championship and an unprecedented eight championships. The long battle has just begun.

Source: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/928334bf3508657cf530340437b855eaf07a4627