Conclusion?

Hey all,

How's everybody? I hope everyone's Shogi has improve alot since my last post! Haha!

Anyways, last Sunday I was promoting Shogi with Darren in Boxhill during the Japan Festival and it was amazing! I definitely have fun to meet interested people and old friends and I absolutely have fun teaching people how to play Shogi! =) Too bad I wasn't able to take any photos to show you guys, but it's definitely a blast spending the whole day promoting Shogi! Promoting Shogi this time has got me thinking about how I should approach to make newcomers get more interested in Shogi. I tried various approach, and I hope I'll be able to convince them to play more Shogi!

Is there anyone in Melbourne who's interested to learn Shogi, or just have a few casual Shogi games? Darren, the main promoter of Shogi in Melbourne, will be holding regular Shogi lessons on Tuesday from 7pm to 9pm in the city so if you're interested please let me know and I'll pass his contacts to you! This is definitely a great opportunity for people staying in Melbourne to learn more about Shogi if you're interested in it! PLEASE make sure to leave down your e-mail in my comment and I'll drop his contact to you!

Lastly, you might be wondering why this post title is named "Conclusion?". That is because I will be graduating soon, and won't be staying in Melbourne anymore. I've already bought my air ticket back to Brunei, and I will be leaving on 17th July 2013. It has already been three years since I'm in Melbourne, and I'm happy to say that I've meet a lot of wonderful people and friends through Shogi. Shogi has definitely make my stay in Melbourne delightful.

I was able to meet Darren, a friendly and wonderful person, who's been trying so hard to find ways to promote Shogi in Melbourne. It's always nice to see him whenever we meet up for Shogi.
I was able to promote Shogi in Melbourne, and see that alot of people are interested in learning how to play Shogi.
Finally, I was able to make new friends thanks to Shogi (and Darren too).

Exams are coming in less than a month and it really saddens me that I will be leaving Melbourne in less than 2 months.Shamefully, I haven't been improving much in Shogi (in fact I've gotten worst!), but my Shogi journey in Melbourne has definitely been an enjoyable one. And it's going to be the closing curtain for my Shogi journey in Melbourne.

I'm really thankful to those whom I've met through Shogi in Melbourne, and I really enjoy playing and talking about Shogi with you all. Thank you all very much (especially Darren!) and hope that one day when I travel back to Melbourne again I'll be able to meet you all wonderful people once again!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MELBOURNIANS!

 ありがとうございます！

Regards,
Ryou Takehito



PS: Any Shogi players in Brunei? Want to hang out and play Shogi with me? If yes, please contact me! I'll be more than happy to meet you have a casual Shogi game together! =)

Japan Festival in Melbourne

Hey all,

We will be promoting Shogi on the 19th May 2013 in Boxhill, Melbourne, Australia. So if you're staying in Victoria, and would love to experience or learn how to play Shogi, please visit us!

There are no further details on the location and time, but I will update this info as soon as I get more information from the main promoter, Darren.

Regards,
Ryou Takehito

Kunio Yonenaga

Hey,

Consolation to the president of Japan Shogi Association (JSA), and one of the greatest Shogi player of all time, Kunio Yonenaga.

http://www.shogi.or.jp/player/kishi/yonenaga.html

May his soul rest in peace. Hope the future Shogi players will take some time to look over his kifu and be amazed at his magnificent gameplay and great Shogi sense.

Regards,
Ryou Takehito

A New and Fresh Start!

Hey all,

Wow. I can't believe it's been more than a year since I've updated my blog! It feels really ashamed that I haven't put any efforts into updating it!

Eventhough I've been hiatus for a long time, all this time I'm still paying attention to Shogi news, play Shogi games in my phone and even practice few tsume problems. Although it still saddens me that I might not have the strength of 2-dan anymore (unless someone's willing to spark the fire in me once again. lol).

To be honest, I'm going to graduate soon and my life will be move into the working society once I graduated.  Now that I have a serious love relationship, it's really time for me to think about working hard in my career and create a beautiful family with my girlfriend. lol.

Anyways enough about my personal life. Now let's talk about Shogi. Before I begin, I would like to thank all the readers out there for supporting me and have some faith with me. Now that I'm approaching my "working life", I'm sad and depressed that I had to forsake the dream of becoming a professional (although I am still seriously considering of becoming a teaching professional in my later life. lol). If I were single, I would definitely move to Japan after my studies in Melbourne and try to aim for the top. But as a Chinese (I'm not Japanese, mind you! lol), it is in my nature to be responsible to take care of my family (including potential future family members.). Also as a man, I cannot bear the thought of abandoning my family so I can pursue my dreams in Japan. There are always sacrifices in having a relationship, and I'm sure I won't regret this decision.

To be frank with everyone, I did not create this blog to be famous. The main reason why I created this blog is because I want to express my love and experiences in Shogi. The posts are also created to serve as a self-reflecting journal, so that if one day I looked back at all my past blog entries I would reminisce the good old times and also how I could further improve my skills. The secondary purpose of this blog is to share my experiences with everyone in the world. I want people to feel the joy and love that I've felt from Shogi and hope that others could start playing Shogi to enjoy it. As a normal person, I want to show people the proof that you can improve your skills in Shogi if you worked hard, like I did. I sometimes would get comments from people that I'm a prodigy or I'm a genius that's why I'm so good at Shogi. I was never good at chess (or any other variations) in my whole life! I'm not exactly a bright student either in my studies too (average about 65%). I want people to see that the sole reason why I got strong in Shogi is because of effort, time, hard-work and passion that I've put into learning Shogi and as a result I improved my skills. If a normal average person like me can become  a Dan player, I believe you can do it too. It wasn't an exaggeration that I used to spend at least 8 hours per day every single day reading Japanese Shogi books, which I don't understand most of the Japanese words (although I only knew how to read the kifus. lol).  Anyways, I am still trying my best to improve my skills (as I really love playing against tough opponents), but not for the sake of becoming a professional. I just want to improve my skills as much as I could.

Shogi definitely has a major impact in my life that I really hope I could return the favor. Therefore, in this post, I would like to discuss that from this post onward, future blog posts will not be solely focusing on my Shogi experiences. I will start interviewing people about their Shogi experiences and how it had impacted their life. I would also review Shogi books (if I have the chance to complete them in a short time), and I 'might' post about my afterthoughts of current professional games. However, I will not post about latest Shogi news as I believe Takodori (http://shogi.typepad.jp/eweblog/) and Yamajunn (http://yamajunnshoginews.blogspot.com.au/) has covered up the news very well. I usually read latest news from their blogs and I certainly do not want to take all their credit and post their news in my blog. I am highly interested in sharing my Shogi friends' experiences, especially Shogi promoters, so that in the future people could easily look for their contact information. I really think that they should take credit for spending alot of time and effort to promote Shogi in their country (or state) and yet does not gain the recognition they deserve.

Here's a summary of the topic I will covered in future blog posts:

1. Personal Shogi experiences

2. Advertisement of Shogi events (depending on where I'm currently located)

3. Interviews of Shogi players (especially promoters, or inspiring players)

4. Shogi book reviews and thoughts

5. Shogi improvement suggestions for beginners (won't be posting much about this)

6. Personal views and thoughts about interesting Shogi articles

7. Personal thoughts about current professional games (not sure I will be doing this or not)

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again in the next post!

Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu!

Regards,

Ryou Takehito

A Temporary Farewell

Hey,

as what the title has suggested, this blog will be undergoing a hiatus for the moment because there has been lots of new things entering my life. At the moment I won't be focusing too much on my Shogi studies but I'll definitely join the weekly Shogi gatherings in Melbourne and also try to promote Shogi in June.

So what are the reasons for my temporary inactivity in Shogi? Well, I've recently pick up a guitar and I'm learning it from scratch. I've been thinking of learning the guitar for years and just a month ago I've decided to give it a try. I actually love music alot, especially rock music so I was thinking why not learn how to play the guitar so I could play my favourite songs? Learning the guitar is no easy thing for a beginner and it has taken up a tremendous amount of time just to get my fingers used to chords and chords changing. My finger tips are a little sore as I'm typing right now. =)

Another reason for the lack of time is the assignments! Assignments are getting heavier and heavier by the end of this semester and exams are coming up next month! I've gotta study and make preparations for exams.

Lastly, I would like to say is that I finally have a girlfriend. =) Since our relationship has just started so I personally think that it's important to spend more time with her and build up our relationship. She is an understanding person and would willing to sacrifice "our bonding time" so I could focus on my stuff, but I don't want her to do that so that's why I'm using some of my "leisure or free" time with her.

This is not a farewell. After I've managed to master the guitar and get my studies over, I'll be sure to come back with a loud BANG! =)

Hope you guys will continue on with your Shogi journey!

Regards,
Ryou Takehito

Quiet blog is quiet

Hey,

I guess it has been a long time since I've made any post. I'm finally back in Melbourne and I'm trying to cope up with my studies. It's been really hectic with all those individual/group assignments that it's really getting on my nerves.

Well, to be honest, not much stuffs have happened to me for the past few months. However I did manage to join the tournament that I've mentioned in my last post.

YEA! THE KL-MEIJIN SEN 2010!!!!!!!

Participants for the tournament are lesser this time, and I happened to meet few of my old rivals. =) Unfortunately I lost during the first round. My opponents too good that he made it into the finals! He said that he is a 2-dan player but I highly doubt it since he can face against a 5-dan amateur player almost at an equal level! Hate to admit it, but I did made a huge blunder which ultimately cost me the game. Ouch.

Next I had an evaluation game against Kenji Kobayashi 9-dan with a rook-handicapped. Sad thing is, I manage to get a win from him but failed. =/ Great news is that he acknowledge my skills at 2-dan amateur, which is a great thing to hear but I'm still highly doubt that I have acquired the level of 2-dan.

Not much Shogi things going on for me recently but I've heard news that there are going to be:
1. A Shogi tournament held in West Malaysia (unconfirmed from the host)
2. Another Shogi promotion from Darren Paul (Ramalam) in Melbourne during June!

I sincerely apologized for the lack of details and information about the Shogi Festival 2010. I didn't happen to have any camera with me at that time. And I would also like to apologize for the lack of updates on my blog. It just seems that there are lesser and lesser interesting Shogi events happened for me that there are nothing to write about. I've been brainstorming for the couple of weeks about what I should write about and I came out with a few. Should I write about:
1. On-going Professional Shogi tournaments with personal analysis and comments?
2. Random analysis and impression of professional Shogi game records?
3. Random pick of amateur games (especially from 81-Dojo) and personal opinion and analysis of their games?
4. Interesting Shogi articles from other foreign bloggers (most notably a Shanghai player)?
5. About my non-Shogi related personal life?

It would be great if anyone could give me any opinion about this. Afterall, this is about my Shogi life and I would definitely love to keep this blog going on and on and on and on till my last breath.

I'm definitely hoping for some advices and would love to update this blog again soon in the future after I've received some comments from you all. =)

Hope you all take care and continue to enjoy Shogi!

Regards,
Ryou Takehito

Back in Malaysia!

Hey,

I'm finally back in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but my stay will be until mid-December only.

My purpose of staying in Malaysia this time is to help my family with the Buddhist Event, so I won't be able to go to Japan Club Kuala Lumpur as much as possible. But today I did go to JCKL, so it was really great to see my friends again.

I am here to inform everyone in West Malaysia that this year's Shogi Festival is on again! Here's the details of the event:

Shogi Festival 2010
Date: 28th November 2010 (Sunday)
Time: 10.00am to 5.00pm
Location: 'Japan Club Kuala Lumpur', Fuji Room
Detailed Location: No. 2, Jalan 1/86, Off Jalan Taman Seputeh, 58000, Kuala Lumpur
Extra Info Location: it's just a small walk from Midvalley, roughly about 5 minutes.

Events:
1. Knockout Tournament with adult and child category
2. A talk by Kenji Kobayashi, 9-dan professional Shogi player
3. Strength evaluation by Kenji Kobayashi
4. Free Dinner?

There is a high possibility that I won't be able to participate in this wonderful event, so this is really disappointing for me. =/

Anyways if I manage to take out some free time to join, please wish me good luck if you happen to see me there!

Don't miss this chance to meet professional player who only came once a year and also participate the KL-Meijin-sen and become the next KL Meijin! If you miss this event, you might have a hard time to join this event again!

Good luck to those who are going to join the tournament!

Regards,
Ryou Takehito