Oohashi Souei VI (大橋宗英・六代目, 1756-1809) was the ninth Meijin, and perhaps the strongest of all the Edo period Meijin.
He was born as Oohashi Shichinosuke (大橋七之助), the son of fifth head Oohashi Soujun V with a concubine. Placed in foster care, Souei VI was nevertheless eventually recalled to the family in view of his outstanding strength at shogi. Changing his name to Souei in 1773, he would play against many independent players. He would make his first appearance in a Castle Shogi game in 1778, receiving a bishop handicap from Itou Souin V and winning; he would do the same to Oohashi Inju IX (later Oohashi Soukei IX) a week later.
In 1790, Souei VI took sente in an even game against then-Meijin Oohashi Soukei IX in the Castle Shogi. That game, a static rook versus central rook game, is one of Souei VI’s masterpieces and is considered one of the finest of all Castle Shogi games. It cemented Souei VI’s position as the potential future Meijin.
In 1792, his father Soujun V passed away, and Souei took over as head of the Oohashi branch house. When Soukei IX passed away in 1799, Souei VI then ascended to the position of Meijin.
Until then, every Meijin had made a tsumeshogi gift to the shogunate, either before or after their ascendance. Souei VI would discontinue that practice. Various reasons have been put forth for this; perhaps it was simply in order to maintain his position as iemoto; or because he felt it was impossible to surpass what Itou Soukan III and Itou Kanju had achieved in this field; or indeed an apocryphal remark that he made that his contemporary, Kuwabara Kiminaka, independent 4-dan player and disciple of eighth Meijin Oohashi Soukei IX, would also be more than up to the task. (Kuwabara Kiminaka is one of only two Edo-period players to have left behind two 100-problem collections, the other being 5th Meijin Itou Soukan II.) Whatever the reason, Souei VI eschewed tradition and focused on playing shogi instead.
The father of modern shogi
Souei VI is the first of the players arguably deserving to be called “the father of modern shogi”. Souei VI’s work on openings and joseki laid the foundation for modern shogi. The Shogi Fushiki (将棋歩式), published posthumously in 1810, was the first of the major joseki works in the Edo period. It covered a wide variety of joseki for two-piece, rook-lance, rook, bishop, left lance and right-lance handicaps, as well as even game joseki for static rook versus 4th-file rook, aigakari, static rook Yagura destroyer, Ishida, ai-yagura, and opposing rook.
His other famous work is the Hirate Aigakari Joseki Shuu (平手相懸定跡集), published later in 1816 (although possibly ghostwritten by his disciple Fujita Keitatsu 藤田桂立). It covers a number of lines deeply in aigakari and yokofudori.
Soukei VI also curated a game collection, the Shogi Kisen (将棋奇戦), which was published posthumously in 1811. In the 102 games he selected himself, 54 are his own games. These include practice games played within the Oohashi branch house at the time, offering a glimpse into shogi games at the time without the prevailing handicap system.
In actual play, he is widely considered to be the strongest of the Edo-period Meijin, and his style of play helped the understanding of shogi to evolve. He was the first to value defence, coming closer to the modern style than his predecessors did. For instance, he would solidify the king’s defences then attack with a “scorched earth” attitude, or value thickness in king’s head attacking games – the “hard-to-lose” style of shogi beginning with him.
His Castle Shogi results in the main games are +6-1=1 as sente/shitate, +4-8=4 as gote/uwate for a lifetime total of +10-9=5. In particular, he won all three even games he contested among those.
In an analysis of historical players done in 2017 by Yamashita Hiroshi, the programmer of shogi engine YSS, Oohashi Souei VI ended up with an estimated rating of 2987, over 200 points clear of the other top players through the entire Edo period, somewhere at a modern amateur 8-dan strength (which is already stronger than virtually every amateur player, and probably even some professionals).
Souei VI passed away suddenly on the day of the Castle shogi in 1809. He fell ill suddenly during the proceedings and left the castle, but died shortly after returning home. His game against Itou Kanri, son of Itou Soukan VI, was terminated in favour of Kanri.
After Souei VI’s death, the seat of Meijin would once again be left vacant, this time for 15 years until 1825.
As for the Oohashi branch family, Souei VI would be the last Meijin to come from there. His son, Oohashi Eichou, took over as seventh head Oohashi Souyo VII, but despite attaining 7-dan was not outstanding in strength, and instead devoted himself to publishing and publicising the joseki books and game collection books that were his father’s legacy.