The 26th Ouisen Tournament, which was supposed to be held last October, was postponed due to record-sized typhoon No. 19, but the event was finally realized with this three-day holiday from February 22. However, this time, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare called for self-restraint of unnecessary and urgent meetings in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19). Cancellation has also become a concern.

In practice, though, it seemed that the number of participants was slightly reduced, but thanks to the efforts of the tournament staff and the care of the participants, the championship was successfully completed. This test is scheduled for the morning of the first day of the event, with highly motivated players participating.

The venue was Sunpearl Arakawa, Arakawa City for the first time.

The results of this test are as follows.

Rank	Total score	Total errors	Name
1	31	2337	Kouichi Koizumi
2	30	3001	Daisuke Katagami
3	25	3570	Akimasa Kaneyori
4	18	4836	Takato Tsushima
Total 4	Ave. 26.0	Ave. 3436

As the shogi player Katagami, who has taken our test many times, said that “this time is the most difficult so far,” the average score of the 9th test was about 2.5 points lower than the previous one. We need to examine this factor later.

After the Ouisen, the next round was scheduled for the Nordic Open 2020 in April, but the Nordic Open itself was canceled due to the spread of COVID-19. So, this has become the last round. The total number of participants in the 9th test was 130. A list of all current participants’ scores can be found here.

As a result, the number of test takers exceeded 100 in all tests from the 1st to the 9th. The total number of examinees so far has been 1,215. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants. Thank you very much 🙂