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Ryu-oh or Ryūō (竜王, 龍王, lit. "Dragon King") is the name of a promoted piece in shogi, a Japanese professional shogi tournament, and the title of its winner.
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The basic meaning of "Ryu-oh" is a "promoted rook". It can move as either a rook (hisha 飛車, lit. flying chariot") or a king (gyokushō 玉将, lit. "jade general") during a turn, and is one of the two most powerful pieces in shogi.
"Ryu-oh" also refers to the annual Ryu-oh Tournament (Ryūō-sen 竜王戦) sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun as well as the title awarded to its winner. The Ryu-oh Tournament, which is one of the seven major professional shogi title matches, was first held in 1988. It comprises preliminary tournaments in six classes and one final. The final tournament, which determines the challenger, involves competitions among eleven players (the top five players from 1st class, top two from 2nd class, and the top four from 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes). The first player to win four out of seven championship games becomes the new titleholder. This title should not be confused with that of "Amateur Ryu-oh" which is awarded each year to the winner of the Amateur Ryu-oh Tournament.
Cash prizes are ¥32,000,000 for the winner of championship and new Ryu-oh titleholder, and ¥8,000,000 for the loser (approximately US$320,000 and $80,000 respectively). Additional compensation includes ¥14,500,000 for the previous titleholder and ¥7,000,000 for the challenger (approximately US$145,000 and $70,000).
Among the seven titles in the professional shogi titleholder system, Ryu-oh and Meijin are the most prestigious ones.
Lifetime Ryu-oh
"Lifetime Ryu-oh" ("Eisei Ryu-oh") is the title awarded to a player who wins the championship five times in a row or seven times in total. Active players may qualify for this title, but it is only officially awarded upon their retirement or death.
The only player to qualify for the Lifetime Ryu-oh title to date is Akira Watanabe; Watanabe qualified for the title by winning his fifth championship in a row in 2008. He will be officially designated as "The First Lifetime Ryu-oh" upon his retirement or death.
Winners
The number in parenthesis represents the culmulative times the player had won the title to date.
Records
Games played outside Japan
The first game of each of the following Ryu-oh title matches was played outside of Japan.
29th Ryu-oh challenger controversy
Hiroyuki Miura 9d won the three-game challenger playoff match for the 29th Ryu-oh tournament by defeating Tadahisa Maruyama 9d two games to one in early September 2016. Three days before Miura was to begin play against reigning Ryu-oh Watanabe, however, the Japan Shogi Association (JSA) announced that Maruyama was replacing Miura as the challenger. The official reason given by the JSA had to do with Miura failing to follow proper procedure in requesting to be allowed to withdraw from the match, but there also had been suspicions raised about Miura's recent frequent leaving of his seat during official shogi games. Suspicions had been raised that he was doing so to consult shogi software or an app installed on a smartphone. Miura denied the accusations at a meeting of the JSA managing directors on 11 October, and said he was withdrawing from the upcoming title match because he could not play shogi under such circumstances. The JSA said that Miura failed to submit an official notification of withdrawal by the required deadline on 12 October and as a result Miura was suspended from official game play until 31 December 2016.
The JSA subsequently established an independent investigative panel at the end of October 2016 to determine whether Miura had actually done anything wrong and to evaluate the appropriateness of its response to the allegations. The panel held a press conference on 26 December 2016 to announce its findings. The panel found there was insufficient evidence to support the accusations of cheating made against Miura and that the claim that he had excessively left his seat during official games was false. Regarding the action taken by the JSA, the panel stated that it believed that the JSA response was appropriate given the circumstances since it had no real option other than to act the way it did. In response to the panel's report, both the JSA and Miura held separate press conferences. JSA president Koji Tanigawa apologized to Mirua and announced he was being allowed to return to active status in Janauary. Tanigawa also stated that he and three other executives of the JSA would have their salaries cut by 30% for a period of three months. Miura criticized the JSA in his press conference and stated that "he wonders why the association banned him from participating in the Ryu-oh championship match since there was no evidence of wrongdoing" and that "he wants things to be settled as soon as possible and that he will try hard to get back to his winning ways".
On 18 January 2017, Tanigawa announced that he was resigning as JSA president to assume responsibility for the JSA's handing of the matter. The following day, the resignations of Tanigawa and Akira Shima, the director in charge of the JSA's handling of the Miura allegations, were accepted at an emergency meeting of the JSA's board of directors.
On 27 February 2017, another emergency meeting of JSA professionals was held in response to a petition signed by 28 current and former professionals asking that the JSA remove five board members involved in the handling of the controversy. The meeting took place via teleconferencing at JSA offices in Tokyo and Osaka, and a vote was held to determine whether the five should be asked to step down. Out of the 234 voting members of the JSA, 216 votes (including 64 by written proxy) were cast and a majority voted for the dismissal of three of the five: Teruichi Aono, Daisuke Nakagawa and Daisuke Katagami.