Shogi in Hungary

Hungary is a country with good traditions in board games. Those people who are interested in chess would be well know with great success Hungarian chessplayers in international tournaments. For a long time we know nothing about shogi in Hungary.

Shogi activities started in Hungary when Gergely Buglyo came back from Japan and founded the first club in Debrecen, in September 2005. While he was living in Aomori prefecture, Gergely Buglyo used to study in the dojo of master Kitabatake Satoru (6 dan amateur). It was a very small dojo in the village of Kashiwa, a bit far away from larger cities like Aomori or Hirosaki, but it had a very nice atmosphere and it was ran according to old Japanese traditions (e.g. there was no entry fee whatsoever, but you had to help master Kitabatake with snow shoveling, etc.).

Later, when he founded the first club in Hungary, he tried to implement master Kitabatake's ranking system to our own club. This means that ranks are awarded in Hungary based on handicap games against the instructor, rather than ELO ratings. In fact, ELO ratings in Hungary is not used at all. Apart from this ranking system that is highly dependent upon the instuctor's own level, Hungarian players use online grading system based on points achieved on www.shogidojo.com, similar to the system Yonenaga 9 dan uses to award dan ranks to amateurs.

During the studies at shogi club Gergely Buglyo tries to teach all the traditons regarding the game of shogi, from the correct way to arrange one's pieces on the komadai, to the right attitude towards one's opponent. He also encourages the students to try and remember some basic Japanese terms that seem necessary.

The biggest event in shogi history of Hungary was visit Meijin Moriuchi in March 2006. Moriuchi Toshiyuki visited Hungary for a chess contest. But he held a shogi presentation and a simultaneous event in Budapest, where all the guests were invited to play a handicap game against him.

Later, in October 2006, a second club was formed in Tokaj, after the original one in Debrecen. It was lead by one of Buglyo's students, Gabor Vasas, 4 kyu. Unfortunately, this club only remained active for a year, but it did a lot for spreading shogi in Hungary. This time the only active club is at the University of Debrecen, with around 30 members (although usually we have 4-12 members present per session).

Hungarian shogi players are very active participants of ShogiDojo and Kurnik. They play a lot and have good results. The winners of several tournaments on Kurnik were Gergely Buglyo and Laszlo Abuczki.

This time there is no official national federation in Hungary but its creation in the near future is planned. Most likely Hungary also will become the new member of FESA.

Hungarian players (best and more active)

Buglyo Gergely

Grade: 2 dan
User's name on Shogidojo: gbuglyo

Abuczki Laszlo

Grade: 1 dan
User's name on Shogidojo: linkuei

Vasas Gabor

Grade: 4 kyu