Karolina Styczyńska


Karolina Styczyńska is a Polish women's professional shogi player. She is the first non-Japanese to be awarded professional status by the Japan Shogi Association.

Background

Styczyńska started playing shogi as a teenager after seeing the game depicted in an issue of the Japanese manga Naruto. She learned the rules of the game on the Internet, then began studying on her own using online materials and videos.
She began playing online games at a website called 81Dojo, where her strong play was eventually noticed by women's professional Madoka Kitao. Kitao was impressed by Styczyńska's ability and invited her to come to Japan for a two-week trip to study shogi in 2011. After arriving in Tokyo, Styczyńska was given a test at the headquarters of the Japan Shogi Association and awarded the rank of amateur 4-dan.
Styczyńska was invited to participate as the tournament's non-Japanese representative in Tokyo in the preliminary round of the 2nd Ricoh Cup on May 19, 2012. Although she did not advance beyond the preliminary round, she became the first non-Japanese female amateur to defeat a women's professional in an official game.
She was again selected to be the non-Japanese representative for the 3rd Ricoh Cup Women's Oza Tournament held in May 2013. As in the previous year, she was unable to advance beyond the preliminary round, but was able to defeat a women's professional for the second time.
In June 2013, Styczyńska became the first non-Japanese female to be accepted into one of the Japan Shogi Association's :Professional shogi player#Apprenticeship|training groups. Her test consisted of eight games against members of various training groups and she finished with an overall record of three wins and five losses. Based upon this result and the strength of her opponents, the JSA accepted her into the C2 training group. Her participation in the C2 group was delayed until the following October to allow her to graduate from college back in Poland. On October 1, she officially began play in the C2 training group.
Styczyńska was promoted to the C1 training group in June 2015, which qualified her to be awarded the provisional women's professional rank of 3-kyū. She submitted an official request to receive the rank and her promotion became official on October 1, 2015. Following a win against Minami Sadamasu in a preliminary game of the 44th in Tokyo she was promoted to 2-kyū on February 20, 2017, thus becoming the first non-Japanese to be awarded full professional status.
Styczyńska's first win as a professional came on March 16, 2017; it was her second official game since becoming a professional. She was promoted to women's professional 1-kyū on April 1, 2017, for winning seven or more official games during the :Fiscal year#Japan|shogi year April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017.

Personal life

Since 2013 Styczyńska has attended Yamanashi Gakuin University, living in Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture. In March 2018 she finished her master's thesis and graduated. She currently lives in Tokyo. Her hobbies are computers, manga, and music.

Media appearances

Styczyńska was one of three opponents chosen to play exhibition games against 62nd NHK Cup champion Akira Watanabe on NHK-E's 2014 New Year's Shogi Special.　
She also served as assistant commentator for Dwango's Niconico English web broadcast of Game 2 of the 2nd in December 2016.
On March 28, 2017, Styczyńska appeared on Nippon TV's Genki no Apuri program. She was interviewed about her reasons for starting to play shogi and the preparation she undertook to becoming a shogi professional as well as the difficulties she faced getting used to sitting seiza-style during professional games.
In April 2018, Otsuka Pharmaceutical announced that they had agreed to sponsor Styczyńska and use her in a promotional campaign for the company's CalorieMate products. Part of the campaign included a web anime about Styczyńska's experience in becoming a professional shogi player titled Go, Karolina which was directed by Mateusz Urbanowicz and produced by Studio Colorido. Three versions of the web anime were officially released in June 2018.

Promotion history

Note: All ranks are women's professional ranks.

Major tournament results

YearLevelTournamentPlaceReferences
2009AmateurEuropean Championship,
World Shogi Open Championship		15th
2010AmateurEuropean Championship,
World Shogi Open Championship		5th
2011AmateurEuropean Championship,
World Shogi Open Championship		11th
2013AmateurEuropean Championship,
World Shogi Open Championship		4th
2013Amateur26th Japan Amateur Ryu-oh TournamentPreliminary round
2014AmateurEuropean Championship,
World Shogi Open Championship		1st