Kunio Yonenaga


Kunio Yonenaga was a Japanese professional shogi player and president of Japan Shogi Association from May 2005 to December 18, 2012.
He received an honorary title Lifetime Kisei due to his remarkable results in the Kisei title tournament. He was a former Meijin and 10-dan.

Biography

Yonenaga was born in Masuho, Yamanashi in 1943. He became a disciple of shogi professional Yūji Sase and moved to Tokyo to live with his teacher to become a professional.
Yonenaga became a professional in 1963 and was promoted to 9-dan in 1979.
Yonenaga was regarded as one of the best shogi players through the 1970s and 1980s. He won Kisei, his first titleholder championship in 1973 and dominated four of the seven shogi titles in 1984. He was awarded the Best Shogi Player of the Year thrice, though he had not won a Meijin title, then regarded the supreme tournament, for decades. He finally won Meijin in 1993 when he was 49, but he was defeated by Yoshiharu Habu the next year. Yonenaga retired in 2003.
He was also an education board member for Tokyo.
In 2008, Yonenaga announced he had suffered cancer since 2008 spring. He reported his cancer diagnosis on his website occasionally which later turned into a book Cancer Note.
Yonenaga was one of early shogi professionals who played with computer shogi publicly. In 2012 after he had already retired, Yonenaga played a game with, a computer shogi software, and lost. Yonenaga authored his last book I lost about this game.
Yonenaga died on December 18, 2012, from prostate cancer at a hospital in Tokyo.

Titles and other championships

TitleYears Held
NHK Cup1979
Nihon Series1980, 1984, 1986

Honours