Riga 2025
Report of the 1st ever Shogi tournament
in Riga, Latvia
The Riga Shogi Cup 2025
Weekend 24th & 25h of May 2025
Venue: Monika Centrum Hotel
Again !
On his mission to “promote Shogi in Europe” , Uwe Frischmuth – the writer of this report – invited this time ‘his’ crowd of loyal Shogi followers to Latvia. Known to be a country with no one known to the Shogi world.
His simple approach – go to places not known to be part of the Shogi world, and just wait and see what happens – has been pretty fruitful this time; and with a lot of successful side results.
After the start-up tournaments in Sofia/Bulgaria, in Llandryd Wells/Wales, and in Gytheio/Greece we decided – as part of our “Promote Shogi in Europe” tour this year – to go to Riga/Latvia.
We had to change our minds. Our original plan has been – going to Georgia, Europe and supporting their local Shogi activities; combined with the attempt to fulfill our touristic ambitions.
Preliminary organisational talks with the local Shogi organizers have set up already the stage for our trip.
But political circumstances in Georgia forced us to take another route. The Georgian Shogi friends understood this perfectly.
The plan of almost all participants was to integrate the tournament into almost a week of travel inside Riga respectively Latvia. Promote Shogi in Latvia, not only in Riga.
We found a conference room in the nice ‘Monika Centrum Hotel’ in Riga, with space and tables enough for the players, for beginner actions and – a coffee service. They even put up some nice looking signs pointing to the venue room.
To characterize the trip in short, I need to mention two names:
Ivo Gubanov & Vairis Kurpnieks
Both have been ‘Happy Campers’ because of our visit.
Ivo runs the perfect place for all chess lovers.
Placed inside a typical pub he offers daily options to play chess. He even founded a Chess Club in 2017.
His response to our wishes, to come to his club and show some Shogi action, was tremendous.
He supported us in every way possible.
Ivo
– informed all other clubs in Latvia about us
– offered sightseeing trips in Riga and the country
– tried to convince other (very strong) chess players to pick up on Shogi, whenever we played in his club during this week
– tirelessly offered options to play Shogi for us with others at his club or elsewhere
– gifted us with his book on philosophy
– tried the game by himself too
Shogi players are very welcome in Riga to play the game at Ivo’s place, a supporter and promoter of Shogi activities.
Ivo Gubanov. https://www.victorypub.lv
When we said goodbye, he promised to take some Shogi action during the next year, especially together with the second one from Latvia-
Vairis Kurpnieks.
A very happy man. Due to Ivo Gibanov’s help we got in contact with each other.
He outed himself as a constant online Shogi player – and joined the tournament for his first time playing over the board.
Having a fairly strong reputation as a chess player ( playing his role as an International Arbiter at Chess tournaments too) he found himself in some sort of a dreamland.
‘Imagine’, he said, ‘ I tried for years to convince others from Latvia to take on Shogi. For years ! And now you come in here like paratroopers, bringing everything with you I dreamed of.
A tournament, material, teaching information, further contacts…..’
This he said during the tournament at Monikas Centrum Hotel.
Which we will talk about now:
Riga Shogi Cup 2025
The idea of holding the tournament in a conference room of a hotel is not new – but helped a lot again.
Monika’s Centrum Hotel in Riga made our two day stay a nice experience. Which started with the coincidence of having a local Chess competition in one of the other conference rooms at the same time.
Certainly, we paid a visit to them and some of their crowd looked slightly puzzled, when looking at our boards while we were playing.
Coffee, tea & water providing and creating a helpful environment for the tournament (need some copies ? No problem) was the hospitality of the hotel we enjoyed.
Seven players found themselves sitting in Riga behind Shogi boards- ensuring a six round tournament.
3 times ‘DE’ (Germany), 2 times ‘JP’ (Japan)
Two other tournaments in Europe at exactly the same weekend lowered the chances of having a higher participation.
Anyway, we kept going.
One player – Kasai Takehiko (JP) – came as a surprise to us, because he didn’t announce himself beforehand. We happily took his registration.
Vairis certainly was the center player of the whole thing – being the first Shogi player from Latvia attending a regular Shogi tournament.
We were all pretty excited about the expectations of his performance.
Will he score at all ?
He scored. Kevin Buchardt gave Vairis from Latvia the honor to put a positive result on the scoreboard of the Riga Cup 2025, having a sound rating start in the Shogi world.
Kevin from the UK scored somewhere else instead.
The results show a tournament, where almost all participants were winning in one way or another.
Richard Rödel (Ger) , winning the tournament.
Congrats again !
Wantanabe Fumihiro (JP), gaining confidence by taking 2nd place.
Kasai Takehiko (JP), 3rd place and gaining some rating points
Fabian Fichter (Ger), 4th place. After having to deal with the surprise loss against Uwe Frischmuth and another loss against Richard Rödel he realized, that the title of ‘German Shogi Champ 2025’ will still remain after losing.
Kevin Buchardt, another backbone of ‘Promote Shogi in Europe’ , made a step by gaining 35 points at fifth place.
Certainly, although ending up finally at 6th place, I was very happy about my win against Fabian Fichter, the current Champ of Germany; regaining 135 rating points.
But the most important outcome for ‘Promote Shogi in Europe’ was, certainly, the first score for Vairis Kurpnieks, holding the Shogi flag for Latvia.
After the tournament was over, we offered him the opportunity to get more registered matches in Latvia in order to secure a first rating for him ; making him the first rated Latvian Shogi player.
Certainly, he didn’t wait long to take that chance since the number of games played at the Riga Open was slightly too low for that matter.
Bauska, Latvia – Monday, the 26th of May 2025
Vairis Kurpnieks invited us to visit him at his house in Bauska/Latvia on Monday for further Shogi actions. Which we accepted.
Richard, Kevin and Uwe – we all played a formal game with him to secure the records for him.
After that we had a nice sightseeing trip under his guidance in Bauska, where he showed us several options for a venue to hold Shogi tournaments of every magnitude imaginable for Shogi.
At our final meal he asked several main questions about FESA, how becoming a member, rating systems, how to get playing material and other details.
Since we left some promotional material in Riga & Bauska – in the light of the mission statement of ‘Promote Shogi in Europe’ – future tournaments in Latvia are now easy to set up.
Either in Bauska or in Riga.
What are the results of this trip ?
Certainly, we were a little surprised by all the prosperous Shogi actions we faced.
– Having established a first set up for further Shogi actions in Latvia.
– Securing the first rating of a player from Latvia.
– Our trip supported his apparent eagerness for further Shogi action of local organizers, including their international ambitions, even more.
That’s more than ‘Promote Shogi in Europe’ had asked for.
Uwe Frischmuth
‘Promote Shogi in Europe’
Riga Open 2025, Riga, Latvia, 24./25. May
Nr Name Nat Grade ELO 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pts +/-
1 Rödel Richard DE 2 Dan 1850 0- 7+ 6+ 5+ 4+ 3+ 2+ 6 +33
2 Watanabe Fumihiro JP 1 Dan 1775 7+ 6+ 5+ 3+ 0- 4- 1- 4 -1
3 Kasai Takehiko JP 1 Kyu 1707 5- 0- 4+ 2- 7+ 1- 6+ 3 +2
4 Fichter Fabian DE 2 Dan 1926 6- 5+ 3- 0- 1- 2+ 7+ 3 -39
5 Butchart Kevin GB 3 Kyu 1438 3+ 4- 2- 1- 6+ 7- 0- 2 +32
6 Frischmuth Uwe DE 3 Kyu 1205 4+ 2- 1- 7+ 5- 0- 3- 2 +134
7 Kurpnieks Vairis LA 1318* 2- 1- 0- 6- 3- 5+ 4- 1
