NHK Cup (shogi)

A total of 50 players compete in the main tournament: 49 male professionals and 1 female professional.[15] Of the 50 players, 32 are seeded and 18 are preliminary tournament winners.[3] Seeded players are determined based upon their results as of December 31 of the previous year. The criteria for selecting seeded players are as follows:[16]

1. The winner, runner-up and two losing semifinalists from the previous year's tournament. (These players are guaranteed not to be paired with each other until the semifinal round (round 5))
2. Current titleholders of the eight major titles main titles: Meijin, Ryūō, Kiō, ōshō, ōza, ōi, Kisei and Eiou
3. Lifetime title holders or those who have qualified for such titles (including "Lifetime NHK Cup champions") and players in either Class A or Class B1.
4. Winners of other tournaments during the previous year.
5. One female professional
6. Players who had performed at an exceptionally high level during the previous year. Typically, these are players who ranked at the top in terms of the number of games played, number of games won, and winning percentage on the JSA's year end ranking of players. (The actual number varies depending upon the number of players selected according to Nos. 1 through 4 above)

Among the seeded players, fourteen are directly seeded into round 2 and, thus, only need to win five games to win the tournament. These include the defending NHK Cup Champion, the previous year's runner-up, the previous year's other two semifinalists, and all of the players in Class A as of December 31 of the previous year. Occasionally other players are also seeded into round 2 in order to complete the fourteen if necessary; This often happens when one or more of the Class A players is also one of the previous year's tournament's semifinalists or a reigning major title holder.

Professionals who do not qualify as one of the aforementioned seeds must win a preliminary tournament in order to advance to the main tournament. The tournaments are held at the Tokyo Shogi Kaikan and Kansai Shogi Kaikan. The preliminary tournaments are one-day tournaments open and, depending upon the number of players playing (typically seven to eight players per tournament), the winner must win either two or three consecutive games to win the tournament.[3]

The preliminaries and the main tournament use a bracket system. The main tournament consists of six round. In Round 1, there are nine games played in each bracket and the winners of those games advance. In Round 2, there are eight games played in each bracket and the winners advance. In Round 3, the remaining eight players in each bracket compete for the right to advance to the quarterfinals. The quarterfinalists then play each other for a spot in the semifinals; and finally, the last four players face each other for a spot in the final. A total of 47 games are played in a tournament; However, this may end up being more if there are any games replayed because they ended in sennichite or impasse.

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        50-player Main Tournament Bracket
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        Preliminary Tournament Bracket (8 Players)
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        Preliminary Tournament Bracket (7 players)

The NHK Cup is a "quick play" (早指し, hayazashi) tournament with time controls that are quite short in comparison to those of the major shogi titles. The entire game usually lasts no more than ninety minutes whereas a major title game often spans two days, and a single move can take hours. An analog chess clock is used to keep track of each player's first time control. Unlike professional chess tournaments, professional shogi players do not have to manage their own clocks or keep the game score. An official "game score keeper" (記録係, kiroku gakari), typically a shōreikai member, keeps the official record of the game and keeps track of each player's time.[lower-alpha 1] In addition to the official game score keeper, there is also an "official game score reader" (棋譜読み上げ, kifū yomiage) who announces each move after it is played as well as the total number of moves played and the final result once the game has finished. The official game score reader for main tournament games is typically a women's professional.

The first time control (持ち時間, mochi jikan) is 20 minutes per player followed by a byōyomi time control of 30 seconds per move. A player in byōyomi who fails to make their move within 30 seconds loses the game. The remaining seconds of byōyomi are counted down by the official game score keeper.[18]

The first time control is 10 minutes per player. Once this 10 minutes has been used up, a second time control of 10 one-minute periods of "thinking time" (考慮時間, kōryō jikan) starts.[lower-alpha 2] When a player has used up all of their thinking time periods, a final byōyomi time control of 30 seconds per move begins.[18][19] The official game score keeper counts down the remaining seconds of a thinking time period, announces when a player has used up one of these periods as well as the number of periods remaining, and counts down the remaining seconds of the byōyomi time control.

Players who win the tournament a total of 10 times qualify for the title "Lifetime NHK Cup Champion" and as such are granted a lifetime seed into all future NHK Cups. To date, only Yoshiharu Habu has qualified to be a Lifetime NHK Cup Champion[lower-alpha 3] Habu has won the tournament a total of 10 times. The next closest is Yasuharu Ōyama (deceased) who won the tournament 8 times,[3] and the next closest currently active player is Hifumi Katō who has won the tournament 7 times.[3] Habu qualified for the title by beating Akira Watanabe to win the 61st NHK Cup (2011) on March 18, 2012.[22][23]

The following is a list of the winners and runners-up for past NHK Cup TV Shogi Tournaments.[24][lower-alpha 4] "No." refers to number of times the tournament had been held up until that time, and "year" refers to the year in which the tournament began.[lower-alpha 5] The number in parentheses next to the winner's name is the number of times that they had won the tournament up until that point.[lower-alpha 6]

From 2005 until 2015, the participating women's professional was determined by a playoff between the reigning women's title holders;[3] however, the selection process was revised in 2016 for the 66th NHK Cup so that the women's professional was determined based upon the recommendation of the Japan Shogi Association,[73] but reverted to a playoff format for the 67th NHK Cup. The name of each year's qualifier is indicated in bold.

The tournament lasts roughly one year from April to the following March. Tournament games are televised each Sunday from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm Japan Standard Time (JST) on NHK Educational TV (NHK-E)[1] and live commentary and analysis is provided by two commentators (shogi professionals): A women's professional who serves as the tournament's host and a professional who serves as the guest display board analyst.

The games are recorded in advance for broadcast at a later date. Before each game, the host briefly interviews each player and asks them about the upcoming game. The players typically sit across from each other seiza-style on zabutons placed on tatami mats in a Japanese-style room (the main studio set) while the two commentators stand before a display board in another studio. Although the player who moves first sits on the left (from the TV audience's perspective), the higher ranked player still takes the ōshō (king general) regardless of the result of the piece toss. Sitting parallel to board at a small table are the official time keeper and the official game score reader. Multiple cameras are used to provide overhead shots of the board, particularly when a player makes a move, wide shots or close-ups of both players when thinking and of the two commentators.[3] In addition, special single-character shogi pieces are used so that they can easily be seen by television audience. Once a game has finished, the two commentators join the two players on the main set and post-game analysis takes place broadcast time permitting.

Women's professionals began serving as tournament hosts for the 41st NHK Cup (1991). The following table shows the hosts since 1991.

The tournament final is hosted by an NHK announcer. The two finalists are joined in a separate studio by the NHK announcer, the tournament's women's professional host and a guest analyst (or analysts) for interviews and some small talk. Each of the finalists is asked to comment on their play throughout the tournament and the upcoming final. The women's professional host and the guest analyst(s) are also asked to give their impressions of tournament and thoughts on the final. Everyone gathers again in the same studio after the final has finished for the awards ceremony where a NHK executive presents the winner with the NHK Cup (trophy) and a certificate, and the runner-up with a certificate. The NHK announcer then conducts some final interviews, and briefly previews the next NHK Cup before the broadcast ends.

From the 1st NHK Cup (1951) until the 11th NHK Cup (1961), the tournament was exclusively broadcast on NHK Radio. The radio broadcasts stopped, however, once the tournament switched to television in 1962 for the 12th NHK Cup.[3]

The tournament returned to radio in 2011 when the final of the 60th NHK Cup was broadcast on NHK-1 Radio in honor of the 60th anniversary of the tournament. The program was hosted by an NHK announcer and commentary was provided by 3 professionals. NHK also created a website people could not only listen to the audio commentary, but could also follow the moves online. Even though the broadcast was not live, it proved to be fairly popular so NHK also did the same for the finals of both the 61st and 62nd NHK Cups as well. The player listed first was sente, and the winner's name is in bold.

In the 38th NHK Cup (1988), 18-year-old Yoshiharu Habu (at the time only a 5-dan), beat three former Meijin and the reigning Meijin in consecutive games on the way to his first NHK Cup championship. He defeated former Meijin Yasuharu Ōyama in Round 3, former Meijin Hifumi Katō in the quarterfinals, reigning Meijin Kōji Tanigawa in the semifinals and former Meijin Makoto Nakahara in the finals.[31][92][93]

Hiroe Nakai became the first women's professional to win a NHK Cup game. She won her round 1 game of the 53rd NHK Cup (2003) against Mamoru Hatakeyama[40][41] and then in round 2 won against Teruichi Aono (who was in Class A at the time).[94] She lost in round 3 to Makoto Nakahara.[40][41] The following year Nakai also qualified for the 54th NHK Cup (2004) and continued her high level of play by beating Shūji Satō in round 1.[42][43] In round 2, Nakai faced Yasumitsu Satō who was the reigning Kisei title holder. Nakai obtained an advantageous position against Satō, but was unable to convert it into a win.[42][43]

Momoko Katō became the second women's professional to win a NHK Cup game when she defeated Takuma Oikawa in Round 1 of the 68th NHK Cup on May 13, 2018.[67] The following year, Kana Satomi became the third women's professional to win a NHK game when she defeated Issei Takazaki in Round 1 of the 69th NHK Cup on July 21, 2019.[69] Satomi won for the second time when she defeated Kohei Funae in Round 1 of the 73rd NHK Cup on April 30, 2023.

The four semifinalists of the 59th NHK Cup (2009) were Yoshiharu Habu, Tetsurō Itodani, Tadahisa Maruyama and Akira Watanabe. Habu beat Maruyama in one semifinal and Itodani beat Watanabe in the other; Habu then beat Itodani in the final.[53][95] The next year in the 60th NHK Cup (2010), the same four players also made it to the semifinals. This time Habu beat Watanabe and Itodani beat Maruyama to make it to the finals where Habu once again beat Itodani to win the championship.[5][96]

In Round 3 of the 46th NHK Cup (1996), Kenji Kobayashi lost on time to Nobuyuki Yashiki when he failed to complete his move within 30 seconds during byōyomi. Kobayashi picked up one of his pieces to make a move only to realize that said move would allow Yashiki to mate in one. Kobayashi tried to return the piece he was holding back to its original square and make a different move, but was unable to do so before the official time keeper for the game Hirotaka Nozuki (an apprentice 3-dan at the time) had counted to 30 and the time is up buzzer sounded. This is the only time that a player has lost a NHK Cup game on time.[97]

Takahiro Toyokawa (6 dan at the time) in round 1 of the 54th NHK Cup (2004),[98] Ayumu Matsuo (5 dan at the time) in round 1 of the 55th NHK Cup (2005) and Takanori Hashimoto (8 dan at the time) in the semifinals of the 64th NHK Cup (2014)[99] each lost games for making an illegal move called nifu.[100]

In the 61st NHK Cup (2011), the Round 1 game between Takuya Nagase (sente) and Yasumitsu Satō (gote) ended in sennichite. Sente and gote were switched and the game was replayed. The second game also ended in sen'nichite. Sente and gote were switched again and a third game was played between the two which Nagase won.[101][102]

A young amateur player aspiring to become a professional typically asks a more experienced professional to formally become their sponsor (i.e., teacher/mentor) and help them through the process. In some cases, the "student" may even decide to go live with their "teacher" and family. There have been two occasions in NHK Cup play where a student has played their teacher, and on both occasions the student won: Tatsuya Sugai beat Keita Inoue in round 2 of the 61st NHK Cup (2011) and Daisuke Nakagawa beat Kunio Yonenaga in quarterfinals of the 45th NHK Cup (1995).