Kōzō Masuda

show This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (October 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,614 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated page}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Kōzō Masuda
Masuda in 1952
Native name	升田幸三
Born	(1918-03-21)March 21, 1918
Hometown	Mirasaka, Hiroshima
Nationality	Japanese
Died	April 5, 1991(1991-04-05) (aged 73)
Career
Achieved professional status	January 1, 1936(1936-01-01) (aged 17)
Badge Number	18
Rank	9 dan
Retired	1979 (43 years)
Teacher	[ja]
Major titles won	7
Tournaments won	6
Career record	544–376 (.591)
Websites
JSA profile page

Kōzō Masuda (升田 幸三, Masuda Kōzō, March 21, 1918 – April 5, 1991) is a deceased Japanese professional shogi player who achieved the rank of 9-dan.^[1] He is a former Meijin who was known for playing very creative shogi. For instance, top player Yoshiharu Habu considered Masuda's playing style to be 30 years ahead of its time and the origin of the modern way to play shogi.^[2]　

Kōzō Masuda Award[]

Each year since 1995 the Japan Shogi Association has awarded the Kōzō Masuda Award (升田幸三賞 Masuda Kōzō Shō) to the player or players whose innovative new ideas in shogi theory or tactics, or whose new or excellent moves have attracted significant attention among other shogi players and fans during the year.^[3]

A second award is the Masuda Special Prize (升田幸三賞特別賞), which is given out infrequently.

Promotion history[]

The promotion history of Masuda is as follows:^[4]

• 1947: 8-dan
• 1959: 9-dan

Major titles and other championships[]

Masuda won the Meijin title in 1957 and 1958, and was the loser in the title match another eight times. He also won the Osho title three times (1951 and 1955–56) and the now defunct  [ja] twice (1957–58). Overall, Masuda won a major title seven times and appeared in a major title match twenty-three times during his career.^[5][6]

In addition to major titles, Masuda won the NHK Shogi Cup three times (1952, 1957 and 1963) and other shogi tournaments four times.^[7]

Awards and honors[]

Masuda was awarded the Japanese government's Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbons in November 1973.^[8]

References[]