It was a special match, between the thirteenth World Chess Champion and chess legend Garry Kasparov, 51, and the no less legendary Shogi (Japanese chess) master Yohiharu Habu, who is widely considered one of the greatest shogi players of all time (he won his 1,300th professional match last month). Habu happens to also be one of the best Western chess players in Japan, with an Elo rating of over 2400. Some were hoping for a dual Western chess and Shogi match, but Kasparov posted on his Twitter page:
The match was sponsored by the video portal provider Dwango Co., which broadcast the match live online through its niconico video website. The event was organized to promote a series of shogi games between professional players and computers that will take place in March – a "Denou-sen" designed as a team match between the five top human shogi players against the five top shogi computer programs.
Kasparov performs the "furigoma" ("piece toss") for an elite Denou-sen human vs computer shogi match
The encounter between Kasparov and Habu was over two rapid chess games, played at a rate of 25 minutes + 10 seconds per move. Here are some screen grabs from the live video coverage, which can be watched after registering.
Kasparov had in his own words "everything to lose" in this match, and tweeted the following:
Impressions of the action and commentary during game one
Postgame analysis of game one, which was a clean win for Kasparov
The end of game two, which Kasparov also decided in his favour, for a final score of 2-0
Select games from the dropdown menu above the board
In the above video make sure the English subtitles are switched on
