From: Larry Kaufman WIZARD NET> Date: 27 may 2000 Subject: Re: SV: Re: A World Shogi Federation and a real World At 12:59 AM 5/27/00 +0200, you wrote: >Dear Larry, > >> Actually, for the first time in history, it now exists! I refer to >>the Ryu-O tournament. The winner of the event in Armonk gets to play in >>the Amateur Ryu-O next year; the winner of that event gets to play in the >>Pro Ryu-O, and so in theory any player in the world could become Ryu-O, >>which can be considered the real World Champion. Of course the event in >>Armonk should have had the word "Amateur" in the title, to avoid the >>implication that the winner is the overall world champion. >> Before this year Ryu-O only invited players from selected regions, so >>it was not really a world championship until now. > > >No, Larry, that will not do, even if it is a great opportunity indeed, and of course >I am happy for Egoshi-san to get this chance. But still there is no World Shogi >Federation. Still there is no real World Championship. Well we have a World Chess Federation (FIDE), but their World Championship is not recognized as the legitimate one by most of the world's chess fans. The coming match between Kasparov and Kramnik will be considered the real championship despite lack of any proper governing body, because they are the two highest ranked players according to a system widely recognized as fair (Elo ratings), and also because it is contested for the largest amount of money. The Ryu-O is contested for the largest amount of money of any shogi title, and any player in the world can now theoretically win it, so regardless of how the title translates it is the only event in the world that might be perceived as a true World Championship. It is sanctioned by the Shogi Federation of Japan, which represents over 99% of the world's players, so I don't see how it fails to meet your criteria for being a true world championship. > > Best regards, > > Martin > Larry