Yasuaki Murayama

Yasuaki Murayama is a Japanese professional shogi player ranked 8-dan.

Early life, amateur shogi and apprenticeship

Yasuaki Murayama was born on May 9, 1984, in Hino, Tokyo. He learned how to play shogi from his grandfather when he was 5 years old, and won the 20th in 1995.
Murayama was accepted into the Japan Shogi Association's apprentice school at the rank of 6-kyū as a protegee of shogi professional in September 1995 and was promoted to the rank of 1-dan in July 1998. Murayama obtained full professional status and the rank of 4-dan in October 2003 for winning the 33rd 3-dan League with a record of 15 wins and 3 losses.

Murayama won his first tournament as a professional in October 2007 when he defeated Ryōsuke Nakamura 2 games to none to win the 38th Shinjin-Ō tournament. In March 2016, Murayama defeated Shōta Chida to win the 65th NHK Cup Shogi TV Tournament.
In 2015, Murayama was one of five shogi professional selected to play a match against the five top shogi computers in the "Shogi Denousen Final", the final part of the Denou series of matches. Murayama lost Game 4 in 97 moves to Ponanza.

The promotion history for Murayama is as follows:

Murayama has won two non-major shogi championships during his career: the Shinjin-Ō in 2007 and NHK Cup Shogi TV Tournament in 2015.

Murayama received the Japan Shogi Association Annual Shogi Awards for "Best New Player" and "Best Winning Percentage".