The or LPSA is a guild of women's professional shogi players headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The organization was established in May 2007 when a number of women's shogi professionals decided to leave the Japan Shogi Association (JSA) due to disagreements over various matters. The current representative director of the organization is Hiromi Nakakura.
Structure Legal status The LSPA is officially registered as a () under Japanese law and has been as such since July 1, 2012. Prior to that, the LSPA had been officially registered first as a limited liability intermediary corporation from its founding until November 30, 2008, and then as a from December 1, 2008, until June 30, 2012.
Members the LPSA has eighteen members of which nine are active professionals, five are lesson (retired) professionals and four are LPSA professionals. Strong amateur female players under the age of 40 who qualify and perform well in women's professional shogi tournaments can apply to become LPSA members and receive the rank of women's professional 2-kyū. In addition, female members of the Japan Shogi Association (JSA) training group system who are promoted to Group B2 may also apply for LPSA membership. Per a 2014 agreement reached between the LPSA and JSA to cooperate and work together in matters related to women's professional shogi and shogi in general, players awarded women's professional status by either organization are recognized as such by the other.
Annual meetings and directors The members of the LPSA meet formally once a year (they may meet more times as needed) to discuss official business and other matters relevant to the association. Five directors are elected once every two years to oversee certain aspects of the association's operations, and a representative director is selected from among the directors to act as the official representative of the association as needed. Two internal auditors as well as other persons serving as advisers or consultants assist the directors in overseeing and determining association operations.
List of representative directors No. Name From To 1 Hiroe Nakai May 2007 May 2010 2 Sachio Ishibashi May 2010 February 20143 Hiromi Nakakura February 2014 present
Activities The LPSA sponsors a number of amateur shogi tournaments for young girls and women. It is also a cosponsor for the women's professional major title tournament the .
History Background Prior to 1974, women were given the opportunity to attempt to become regular professionals (正規棋士 seiki kishi) by trying to obtain such status via the 's professional shogi player apprentice school, but none were able to obtain such status. There were women such as Akiko Takojima who were members of the JSA, but they were primarily lesson professionals who helped teach others the game and appeared at shogi events or on TV as assistants to help with demonstration-board commentary as opposed to being tournament professionals that competed against their peers. The JSA, therefore, decided in 1974 to establish a separate ranking and promotion systems for women's professionals in 1974 along with the , the first major tournament solely for women's professionals. Separate systems for amateurs aspiring to become a women's professionals were also established.
Although the upgrade to women's professional status did give women more opportunities to pursue shogi as a vocation, they were still non-voting members of the JSA who were ineligible to run for any organizational offices and generally not considered to be of the same status as regular professionals. The overall conditions for women's professionals were, in comparison to regular professionals (de facto male professionals), not as favorable despite the boost in fan support and increased media coverage that the JSA and professional shogi in general received due to the popularity of a number of young strong women's professionals, such as Naoko Hayashiba, and Ichiyo Shimizu, who started appearing in the 1980s. The JSA did establish a voluntary association called the (LPPG) in 1989 for women's professionals in response to a successful event organized by women professionals to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the women's professional system and the overall popularity of women's professionals among shogi fans, but it operated within the JSA. Dissatisfaction with the status quo grew over the years as the number of women's professionals increased, and by 2006 some women's professionals felt that the system needed to be changed.
Split from JSA
On March 8, 2006, two members of the , Nakai and Sachio Ishibashi, met with then-JSA president Kunio Yonenaga to unofficially discuss issues related to the status of women's professionals, including a request that the JSA reconsider its position on matters such as salaries and benefits, insurance, and membership in the . Yonenaga, however, declined their request stating that the JSA's bylaws specified that only persons graduating from the apprentice professional school can be awarded full professional status and receive its associated benefits. It was during this meeting that Nakai and Ishibashi stated that Yonenaga instructed women's professionals to seek independence if they were unsatisfied with the current state of things. On March 30, LPPG president Natsuko Fujimori sent out a letter to all LPPG members notifying them of the leadership's desire to become an independent organization.
On April 14, 2006, a special meeting of the LPPG membership was held with JSA president Yonenaga and JSA senior managing director , who was the director in charge of matters related to women's professionals, also in attendance in which the JSA asked the women's professionals to continue on as before and work within the current system.
The LPPG held its annual general meeting in June 2006, where it established a committee to examine the future of women's professional shogi within the JSA but would at the same time consider other options such as independence. The head of the committee was selected to be Akiko Takojima, and Fujimori, Nakai, Ichibashi and Rieko Yauchi were appointed as members.
On November 7, 2006, the LPPG leadership sent out a letter to all of its members announcing that a special meeting would be held in December to discuss the future of women's professional shogi. The members were requested to state whether they would be able to attend or would be represented by proxy, but no details were given about the meeting's itinerary and no meeting materials were sent with the letters. The LPPG committee met on both November 28 and 29 to further explain the situation, but once again no materials related to the meeting were released and requests to see the materials were denied. A notification about the upcoming meeting was posted on the official LPPG website staff blog on November 26, 2006.
On December 1, 2006, the LPPG held another special meeting where Fujimori put forth a motion regarding whether the association should seek corporate status as an independent organization, and the membership voted in favor of the motion and created a (NCEPC) to begin examining the feasibility of forming their own organization. The committee was headed by Nakai and was tasked with developing a business plan which included revenue sources and sponsor negotiations, etc. A brief statement about the meeting was posted the by the public relations department of the JSA on the association's official website later that same day, which included a comment given by Japan Shogi Association senior managing director Nishimura stating that the JSA had been informed of the outcome of the meeting, would respond to it in good faith and would work with the LPPG and other concerned parties in comprehensively reviewing the situation. There was, however, some disagreement among women professional's over what exactly had been decided, with some saying that result was clearly a mandate in favor of breaking free of the JSA while others stating that the result was only to establish a preparatory committee to cautiously explore various options. This difference of opinion began to cause a split among the women's professionals.
In January 2007, the LPPG contacted the Japan Go Association to inquire about the possibility of using its head office as a site for holding official women's professional games if such games could no longer be held at the JSA offices if the LPPG became independent. A representative of the Go association stated that doing so should not be a problem since shogi boards and pieces could be easily stored and there should be no scheduling conflicts if games were played on days when the Go association did not itself have any official activities scheduled. On January 30, 2007, the members of the visited the JSA headquarters to inform the association's board of directors of its intention to actively start seeking financial support for its activities and for a possible independent women's professional shogi players' association starting in February. The NCEPC stated that their goal was to try and raise 100 million Japanese yen in financial support and requested that the JSA grant them permission to do so. According to an April 2007 article published in the Nishinippon Shimbun, it was at this meeting that the JSA position on the matter of women's professional becoming independent changed and hardened in favor of trying to discourage it. The article stated that one of the reasons the JSA, in particular its president Yonenaga, had initially been in favor and even seemed to encourage women to become independent was because of financial concerns the association was facing at the time and the general cost of supporting women's professionals; however, when the JSA heard that the NCEPC wanted to raise JPY 100 million, they became concerned that this would impact the association's ability to raise funds for its own activities.
In February 2007, the JSA's board of directors met to discuss the current situation. The board felt that not much progress was being made and the disagreement among women's professionals over becoming independent had created a state of uncertainty that might impact its operations as well as its relationship with fans and sponsors. So, the board approved the sending letters to all 55 women's professionals requesting that they officially state whether they were in favor of remaining part of the JSA or becoming independent. The NCEPC felt that this represented a hardening of the JSA's position that placed unnecessary pressure on women's professionals and further exacerbated the differences in opinion on the matter. The board also reaffirmed its position that only those persons completely the apprentice school system would be eligible for full-membership, but also pointed out that women professional's could also attempt to obtain regular professional status through the special testing system established in June 2006 for promising amateur players no longer eligible to participate in the apprentice school system.