Shogi prodigy Sota Fujii won his eighth major title on Wednesday, making history as the first player ever to hold all eight major titles. The 21-year-old took the Oza crown, having won Game 4 to finish the best-of-five match against 31-year-old Takuya Nagase.
Fujii had two wins and one loss against Nagase in the best-of-five match going into Wednesday. If Nagase had won the match in Kyoto, he would have caught up to Fujii.
Nagase had been on his way to becoming the third person to earn the “honorary throne” in the Oza Sen, a title only given to a player who has won the crown five times in a row. He had held the crown since 2019.
Fujii debuted as the youngest professional shogi player at the age of 14 in 2016. The Aichi Prefecture native is no stranger to breaking records, having been the youngest player to win all of the other major titles. He is also now the youngest to win the Oza crown.
He was the second player to win seven major titles, following Yoshiharu Habu who completed a sweep of all of what were then the game’s seven major titles in 1996. Fujii is the first to win all eight.
Discussion about this post