Shogi Tournament (Day 73)

Today I had a shogi tournament in Wakayama city. It was the High School Ryu-ou Prefectural Tournament. Winning it allows you to compete in the national championship. On the train I saw Shunnsuke (my first host brother). My teacher picked Toshiki and I up at Miyamae station. I won my first round in the preliminaries against someone from Toin high school. The match lasted less than 5 minutes. I was expecting him to be very good because Toin has a very strong shogi team, and last year the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were all from Toin. The second round of preliminaries, with my bad luck, I end up playing someone very good from Toin. It was a close match, but I lost. At this point Toshiki had lost 2 matches in the preliminaries which eliminated him from the tournament. The third round of preliminaries I played someone from Tanabe Kougyou (Tanabe Technical High School which has a strong shogi team) and won which advanced me into the finalist tournament. My first round I played another player from Toin. I played well, but made a huge mistake in the middle which gave up my dragon that I made. However I was still able to win. Then in the round of 16 I end up matching up with the person that I lost to in the second round of preliminaries again. Since the last match was a close one I thought that I had a chance to win. I was playing well in the beginning and was able to break through his defense and attack using a strategy called Aigakari bougin (double wing attack primitive climbing silver). Then I made another mistake and gave up my rook which cost me the game. I lasted until the round of 16. Many people were surprised at how far I lasted because I was from Minoshima (not a strong shogi school) and that I was from the US. The tournament was very fun and hope that I have another opportunity like this in the future.

After the tournament my host dad was singing in a concert at a library called ALEC. It was a concert run by locals for the last 2 years. My host father sang a song from the new Doraemon movie called "Himawari no yakusoku" (The Sunflower's Promise). My former host mother also sang in the concert. They were both very good. Afterwards Tsubasa, Ritsuki, my host mother, and I went to a ramen store called Tsukinoya.