Photo/Illutration Reo Koyama poses for photographers after qualifying to become a professional shogi player in Osaka’s Fukushima Ward on Feb. 13. (Nobuhiro Shirai)

Shogi coach Reo Koyama quit his day job to compete in the board game he loved and it paid off when he became the first to become a professional without attending a special training academy. 

The amateur player defeated Tomoki Yokoyama, a 4-dan professional, on Feb. 13 in a qualifying match in Osaka to claim the third and deciding victory in the best-of-five format.

“I’m relieved that I’ve achieved it,” said Koyama, 29. “I owe the most to people who have supported me.”

Koyama played aggressively and maintained a narrow advantage in the match.

By winning the matches that served as a pro-qualifying test, Koyama became the first professional player, under the current qualifying system, who has never trained at Shoreikai, a high-profile shogi academy.

While the vast majority of professional players have earned their certifications by graduating from Shoreikai, there are other paths including the one Koyama took. He earned the right to challenge a professional player after surviving rounds of qualifying events.

Only four players so far have made it to the final round of the process and three have won their matches to be certified as a professional.

Kenji Imaizumi, 49, and Shogo Orita, 33, both currently 5-dan professional players, and Kana Satomi, 30, who failed to qualify, were all trained at the academy before dropping out due to the age limit.

Originally from Iwate Prefecture, Koyama is a survivor of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the area in 2011.

Although he failed the exam to enter Shoreikai when he was a junior high school third-grader, he worked hard and went on to win a series of amateur titles.

Koyama’s remarkable achievements at the qualifiers of the high-profile Ryuo tournament from 2020 through 2021 gave him enough confidence to take the plunge and shoot for the professional ranks. 

“I want to be a better player. It’s a now-or-never moment, given my age,” Koyama told himself in spring 2021, when he quit his job to focus on shogi.

He has made rapid progress in recent years through the assistance of artificial intelligence.

He studied strategies devised by AI and employed what he had learned at the computer in games against human opponents.

More than a year of hard work led to three consecutive victories against professional players in the Asahi Cup tournament in 2022, earning Koyama the requirement to take the pro-qualifying test.

This entailed scoring 10 or more wins in tournaments against professional players and achieving a winning percentage of 65 percent or more.

(This article was compiled from reports by staff writers Keiji Sato and Shinya Murase.)

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