Only six years has past since Sota Fujii debut, but he and Akira Watanabe have already played 14 games, which is abnormally high frequency. It is because they played three title matches. Fujii’s first title was Kisei, and the opponent was Watanabe. In the major title match, the previous year’s champion (title holder) and challenger plays several games. In the case of Kisei match, winner need to obtain 3 wins, which means they possibly play 5 games in maximum. In 2020, Fujii was already very famous, but people said Watanabe had advantage, because young Fujii might be struggle to play under the unique atmosphere of title match. However, the result was that Fujii lost only one game. In the same year, Fujii gained momentum and won the next title match of Oi as well. After that, Fujii obtained all the title crowns whenever he proceeded to challenger place. Now he possesses five crowns. Remaining three titles are Master, Kio, and Oza.
There are eight major titles. The Eio title was recently added. Below is the list with its rewards and required wins. The rewards are not officially announced except for the Ryuo, so they are estimations. Watanabe was the champion of reward ranking in 2020 and 2021, Fujii was the third place in 2021. Most probably Fujii will take over the first place in 2022.
- 竜王 Ryuo : 375K USD, 4 wins first (max 7 games)
- 名人 Master : 175K USD, 4 wins first (max 7 games)
- 王位 Oi : 90K USD, 4 wins first (max 7 games)
- 王座 Oza : 70K USD, 3 wins first (max 5 games)
- 棋王 Kio : 50K USD, 3 wins first (max 5 games)
- 叡王 Eio : 25K – 50K USD, 3 wins first (max 5 games)
- 王将 Osho : 25K USD, 4 wins first (max 7 games)
- 棋聖 Kisei : 25K USD, 3 wins first (max 5 games)
Definitely Sota Fujii is the new star, however, Akira Watanabe is also the genius that no one doubt. He started his professional carrier in 2000, when he was 15 years old. His first title crown was Ryuou in 2004. After that, he had held the Ryuou title for 9 years in row, which is the longest record in Ryuou tournament history. He also won many other titles, and his cumulative numbers of title is now 29, which is 4th place in the history.
Watanabe sometimes repeats same type of opening strategy, even it was his losing game. The 4th game in the Osho title match with Sota Fujii on 11-Feb in 2022 was the one. Below picture is the actual situation on the board. A move before this position, Fujii dropped his pawn on 7f, until here, Watanabe and Fujii had played exactly same game. It was Kisei title match 3rd game in 2021. In that game, Watanabe moves his Silver to 6f, and he lost the game. Perhaps he could not allowed himself and studied what was wrong, and his answer was here. This time, he escaped his Silver to 8h, instead of 6f. The game proceeded evenly for a long time. However, finally Watanabe resigned by a narrow margin.
I would like to check how he will make revenge to the new star in near future.
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