Life In 19x19

Cho Chikun and Watanabe Akira (shogi 9p) playing simultaneous games of go and shogi. Cho doesn't seem to do too bad (with a 4-piece handicap).

How common is knowledge of the other game in go/shogi professional circles? I remember having seen pictures of Go Seigen and another (go) pro playing shogi together. I also vaguely remember reading about Honinbo Sansa being pretty good at both games.

Hi Shenoute,

You might find this post by John Fairbairn particularly interesting:
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.g ... JanmNr2jMJ

The book he referred to, authored by Yonenaga Kunio, can be found at this link:
https://tinyurl.com/yr3nm4e9

I remember reading biographies of Shogi professionals in Shogi World magazines, and most of them were 5 dan in Go.

Just to mention, Takemiya Masaki is a very strong backgammon player, and Nie Weiping plays bridge.

Thanks, kupus! The post by Jon Fairbairn was a very interesting read.

The novel Meijin (Master of Go) by Kawabata has many references to the maijin playing shogi with almost anyone he could find. Maybe of interest is the fact that a (professional?) go or shogi player is generically termed kishi.