Yoshiharu Habu
Early life. Yoshiharu Habu was born in Tokorozawa, Saitama in 1970 and moved to Hachioji, Tokyo before entering kindergarten. Habu first encountered shogi in his first year of elementary school, when his classmates taught him how the shogi pieces move. He was so fascinated by the game that his mother entered him in a shogi tournament held at the Hachioji Shogi Club in the summer of 1978. Although Habu was eliminated during the preliminary rounds with a record of 1 win and 2 losses, his parents took him to the shogi club every weekend from October 1978. Habu  improved so rapidly that he was promoted to amateur 5-dan in October 1981 at the age of eleven. During his elementary school days, Habu regularly participated in regional and national shogi tournaments, mainly for children. At these tournaments, Habu played against several children of the same age who also became professional players, including Toshiyuki Moriuchi, Yasumitsu Sato and Manabu Senzaki. Those players born around 1970 are now known as the , not just because they were born in the same year, but also due to their outstanding achievements as players. In July 1981, Habu qualified to participate in the as  the youngest ever representative ever of the Tokyo Suburban Area, and won four tournaments for elementary school children the following August. In April 1982, Habu won the 7th . He expressed his desire to become a professional player and asked advice from Katsuyasu Nakajima, the owner of the Hachioji Shogi Club and a student of Tatsuya Futakami. Habu applied for admission into the Japan Shogi Association's apprentice school as Futakami's student and was accepted as a member in 1982. Shogi professional. Habu became a 4-dan professional in 1985 at the age of 14. He was the third junior  high school kid professional in shogi history following Hifumi Kato and Koji Tanigawa. In 1989, at the age of 19, Habu 6-dan won the Ryūō championship, defeating Akira Shima who led a 4-person shogi study group "Shimaken" in which Habu himself took part. This was the first time Habu won one of the seven major titles making him, at the time, the youngest titleholder ever. Although he lost the Ryūō title to Tanigawa the following year, Habu won the Kiō championship four months later in 1991. Since then he has held at least one of the seven major  titles every year since then, and according to custom of the titleholder system he has, therefore, never been referred to by his dan ranking since winning that first championship in 1989. Accumulating three wins in major championships (Ryūō in 1989, Kiō in 1991 and 1992), Habu actually did qualify for promotion to 9-dan in March 1992, but the existing promotion rules required him to be promoted to 8-dan first and then to wait one year before his next promotion. He was officially promoted to 9-dan on April 1, 1994. In 1992 Habu won the Ōza championship defeating  Bungo Fukusaki to hold two titles (Kiō and Ōza) simultaneously. He went on to hold the Ōza title for 19 terms in a row. In 1996 (February 14 to July 30), Habu became the first professional to ever hold all seven major titles (Meijin, Ryūō, Kisei, Ōi, Ōza, Kiō, and Ōshō) at the same time, a remarkable feat that has not been duplicated since. In July 2012, Habu won his 81st shogi title overall when he won in the Kisei title, becoming 1st on the all-time title-winners list, and surpassing the 80 of Yasuharu Ōyama. In June 2014 , Habu defeated the defending Meijin Toshiyuki Moriuchi four games to none to become the 72nd Meijin. Habu lost his Meijin title to Moriuchi in 2011 (69th Meijin match) and was unable to defeat Moriuchi and regain the title in both 2012 (70th Meijin match) and 2013 (71st Meijin match). By defeating Moriuchi, Habu not only moved into a tie with both Moriuchi and Yoshio Kimura for third place on the all time Meijin winner's list, he also became the first person the recapture the title for the third time. In November 2014, Habu won his 1300 official game, becoming  the fourth player to do so, the youngest player to do so (44 years and 1 month) and the fastest player to do since turning professional (28 years and 11 months). Habu's win came in his 1801 game as a professional and his winning percentage of 72.3 percent at the time is the all-time highest of any professional player to reach 1300 wins to date. In December 2017, Habu defeated defending champion Akira Watanabe to win the 30th Ryūō title. It was Habu's seventh Ryūō title overall which qualified him for the title of Lifetime Ryūō. It  also made Habu the first shogi professional to qualify for lifetime titles in seven major titles. On January 5, 2018, Habu became the first shogi professional to be awarded Japan's People's Honor Award. In November 2018, it was announced that he was also awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon. On November 21, 2018, Habu became the seventh shogi professional to play 2000 official games. At age 48 years and 1 month, Habu is the youngest to achieve the feat. He also accomplished it in 32 years and 11 months since obtaining professional status, thus becoming the fastest to  do so. Furthermore, his overall winning percentage of .709 is also the highest among those who have previously reached the milestone. On December 21, 2018, Habu lost the 31st Ryūō title to challenger Akihito Hirose 4 games to 3. The loss of the Ryūō title marked the first time in 27 years that Habu was a not one of professional shogi's major titleholders. A few days after losing the Ryūō title, the Japan Shogi Association announced that Habu had expressed his desire to be officially referred to as "Habu 9-dan" () instead of as "Ex-Ryūō Habu" (), the way  Ex-Ryūō champions can choose to be referred to as throughout the year following their loss of the title. Habu defeated Masataka Gōda on March 17, 2019, to win the 68th NHK Cup tournament. It was the eleventh time Habu won the tournament, and also the 45th non-major title championship of his career, which broke the previous record of forty-four championships he shared with Ōyama. On June 4, 2019, Habu defeated Takuya Nagase to become the shogi professional with the most victories of all time with 1,434 wins. Habu tied Ōyama's record of 1433 career wins a  little over a week earlier on May 23, but then lost his next game and his first chance to break the tie on May 30. Habu's 1,434 win came in his 2,027 game as a shogi professional and gave him an overall winning percentage of 0.708. Playing style. Habu is an outstanding player of Static Rook strategies in both attack and defense, whether in early fight or slow game circumstances, but has also used Ranging Rook openings on occasion. Shogi professional Kiyokazu Katsumata has described Habu's as "a man who plays by applying the strong points of successive  great masters as the circumstances demand, a man who combines all of the virtues of all the great masters". Habu's favorite piece is the silver, which he finds vital for both attack and defense. His winning percentage when dropping golds and silvers on the squares 23 and 83 (or at 87 and 27 when playing White) is said to be high even though winning after such drops is generally considered to be quite difficult. For this reason, these squares are referred to by some in the shogi world as "Habu's zone". He is well known for playing superb  moves in disadvantageous positions in the endgame, with peculiar brinkmate sequences that other players seem unable to come up with, a characteristic that many young players called "Habu's magic", a label under which he has published a series of books. His long time rival Toshiyuki Moriuchi said of him: "His greatness lies in that as those around him get stronger, he also gets stronger. He is completely obsessed with not letting there be any big difference in playing strength between himself and other shogi professionals." Chess professional. Habu is also one of the best chess players in Japan, with  a peak Elo rating of 2415 in February 2014. In November 2014, he played former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in an exhibition match sponsored by the Japanese company Dwango. The two played two 25-minute rapid games with Habu losing both. Personal life. In March 1996, Habu married actress and singer at Hato no Mori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya, Tokyo, not far from the head office of the Japan Shogi Association. The two had met for the first time in September 1994 and officially announced their engagement in July 1995. It was reported that 80 police officers were assigned  to the ceremony due to the popularity of the two. , they have two daughters. Shogi promotion history. The promotion history of Habu is as follows: Shogi titles and other championships. Major titles. There are eight major titles in shogi. Below is a list of number of times and years Habu has won each title. Lifetime titles (qualified for, but awarded upon retirement or death): Lifetime Meijin, Lifetime Ryūō, Lifetime Kisei, Lifetime Ōi, Lifetime Ōza, Lifetime Kiō, Lifetime Ōshō. As a result of having Lifetime awards for all 7 titles, Habu is called the Lifetime Seven Crown (永世七冠) holder. Holds the  record number of title match victories for the following titles: Kisei (tied with Ōyama and Nakahara), Ōi, Ōza, Kiō Holds the record number of consecutive title match victories for the following titles: Kisei, Ōza, Kiō Other tournaments. In addition to major titles, Habu has won the following non-title tournaments. Lifetime titles: Lifetime NHK Cup Champion Note: Tournaments marked with an asterisk (*) are no longer held. Awards. Habu has received the following awards in recognition of his accomplishments throughout his career. The Annual Shogi Awards are awarded by the Japan Shogi Association to its members each year in recognition of  performance during official play throughout the previous professional shogi year or shogi (April 1 to March 31). "Other awards" includes those awarded by the JSA for career accomplishments and those awarded governmental organizations, etc. for contributions made to Japanese society. Year-end shogi prize money rankings. Since 1993, Habu has finished at the top of the year-end prize money rankings a total of 23 times (1993–96, 1998-2012, 2014–16, 2018), second twice (1997 and 2013), third once (2017), fifth twice (2019 and 2021) and sixth once (2020). All amounts are given in Japanese yen and consist of tournament winnings  and other game fees received during the calendar year (January 1 to December 31). Publications. Habu has written numerous books, articles, etc. on shogi and various other topics. The vast majority of these are in Japanese, but there are some written in English.