Eiki Ito, 49, started programming a shōgi (Japanese chess) computer in 1998, because back then, he says, his job with an IT firm wasn't keeping him busy enough. Thirteen years later, his pet machine boasts a computing ability of 4 million moves per second. And it may well soon beat one of the strongest shōgi players Japan has ever produced.

Come Jan. 14 next year, Ito, or rather his computer, named Bonkras, will fight head-on with Kunio Yonenaga, a retired professional shōgi master who heads the mighty Japan Shōgi Association (JSA). If the computer — whose name was taken from a Japanese manga character and is a spin on the word bonkura, meaning "dim-witted" — wins the match, it would signal the arrival of a new era in the 400-odd-year history of shōgi, a two-player board game with an estimated 12 million fans around the country.

While computer chess programs have long since proved their supremacy over humans — with the IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer defeating the then-grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997 — shōgi's professional players have so far avoided the embarrassment. Experts say shōgi is a more complex game than chess and is therefore harder for computers to learn, because in shōgi, players can re-use opponents' pieces as their own after taking them. But there is another aspect to it.