Fujisawa Rina - Go & Shogi Channel Captain 2025-6

Fujisaw Rina

7 Dan Fujisawa Rina (藤沢里奈）is one of the big name 'coffin hunters' in
the league. Captain of the victorious team least season she has been a power in female GO in Japan for years.

As with a lot of Professional Go Players she has an impeccable family pedigree born 18th September 1998 she is the daughter of 8 Dan Pro Fujisawa Kanzunari and grand-daughter of honorary Kisei Fujisawa Hideyuki. Until Nakamura Sumire stole the crown she was also the youngest female Professional becoming so at 11 years and 6 months though she was also the first to be promoted via a women's only league and not having to compete with the males (at the time she was a top 30 Insei which would have meant a competition to even get to the actual promotion competition). With that though she has proven that this does not mean a loss of talent/skill as her results since have shown.

At this point she has the 2nd best female win rate in Japan at 63.6% (just behind Ueno Asami) and has won a huge amount of titles.

She seems both popular and well liked being notably friends with Jo Bun'en, Takayama Nonoka and Hishiai Shiho (all in this league).

Play style wise she has gained a reputation for very, very strong yose (end game) even getting a nickname 'Rina Zero' in a play on the AI of similar name. As such her early career tended to focus on territorial positions which could be utilised with the strong end game to gain wins. Of late she has started to become much more proactive and combative though this might be a response to the some of the other leading females such as Ueno Asami who are very aggressive. Other style comments of note include Cho Chikun stating that she can handle any style mean that she is also adaptable and if she has any weaknesses her tourney history seems to show a slight weakness in Blitz type games.

In her personal life she was recently married to another Go Professional (congrats Rina).

Her ELO chart, as of today, is interesting.

Chart Source - Please view for current on the source website Fujisawa Rina

So from being made Professional as a teenager you can see a fairly meteoric rise up to a high of 3276! in late 2021 (pandemic), there has been a slight drop of since which might partially be due to distractions from her marriage. Professional Go is a hard taskmaster that does not allow for any attention lapses especially in the upper echelons of the sport. She is still ranked #248 in the world (male & female) with an ELO of 3228 and is currently the 2nd best woman in Japan (after Ueno Asami).

She and Asami are the cream of the competition (with Asami's younger sister Rina close behind) and her tourney record speaks for itself. 

Looking in more detail at tourney records we can see how consistently she has been at the top of the competitive tree in Japan for years and several interesting head to heads with other opposing league players.

Female Honinbo (5.5 million yen prize)

33rd WIN beating Xie Ximin (same team) 3-0
34th LOSS to Xie Ximin (same team) 2-3
35th WIN beating Xie Ximin (same team) 3-1
36th LOSS to Xie Ximin (same team) 2-3

37th WIN beating Xie Ximin (same team) 3-1

38th LOSS Ueno Asami (Senko) 1-3
39th WIN beating Ueno Asami (Senko) 3-2
40th WIN beating Hoshiai Shiho (Fukuoka) 3-0
41st WIN beating Ueno Asami (Senko) 3-0
42nd WIN beating Ueno Risa (Wakagoi) 3-2
43rd WIN beating Nyu Eiko (Nagoya) 3-2
44th WIN beating Hoshiai Shiho (Fukuoka) 3-2

Gaining information from competition results is perhaps not always wise but you can see how she and Ximin duked it out in the early part of her career with Rina's wins being fairly emphatic but losses closer then that switched to the current Female Pro Royalty. Interesting results though are Shiho losing in the 40th 3-0 but in the last 44th only by 3-2 games. Nyu Eiko and Risa have also been competitive.

Switching to the shorted finalled Meijin (7 million yen prize fund)

29th WIN beating Xie Ximin 2-0
30th WIN beating Kumiko 2-0
31st WIN beating Xie Ximin 2-1
32nd WIN beating Ueno Asami 2-0
33rd WIN beating Namakura Sumire 2-0
34th LOSS to Ueno Asami 2-0
35th WIN beating Ueno Asami 2-0
36th LOSS to Ueno Asami 0-2

More restricted prize pool here but we can again see Xie Ximin early with back and forth to Ueno Asami and (Sumire who isn't in the league - playing in China currently). 

The Kisei which is a fastplay competition only has

22nd (2019) LOSS to Ueno Asami 0-2

Which might indicate a marginal weakness at quick play.

Finally in the Senko (16 top player knockout tourney) we have

2017 WIN beating Xie Yimin
2019 WIN beating Xie Yimin

2021 WIN beating Ueno Asami

2024 WIN beating Ueno Asami

2025 LOSS to Ueno Risa

Similar to the other leagues she has been dominant when she gets to the final bar her most recent. The other tourneys feature challenger competitions for the right to go up against the champion so the incumbent champion gets a 'rest' from extra games whereas the Senko being a pure knockout is perhaps more reflexive of competitive skill (in some ways).

Last year Rina was Captain of the same team and led them to victory wining 8 and only losing once (to Ueno Asami in the pool rounds) - she got her own back by beating her in the final though. Interestingly her team was the 2nd placed moving into the final as Asami's team had taken more wins.