Ueno Risa

上野 梨紗 Ueno Risa (born 24 June 2006) is a female Japanese professional 3 dan. She is the younger sister of Ueno Asami and the third youngest Japanese female to have been promoted to professional rank aged 12y 9m, after only Fujisawa Rina (11y 6m) and Nakamura Sumire (10y 0m). Pupil of Fujisawa Kazunari, Rina’s father.

According to the Rating list, 2024-01-02, Ueno is the #4 ranked female player and #78 overall in Japan, #21 ranked female and #357 overall in the world. She is also #4 ranked female teenager in the world and current Female Kisei and current World Women’s Senko Cup champion.

Ueno has an overall professional game record of 263 games, 165 wins, and 98 losses, for a 62.7% win rate (as of 2025/01/28).

She plays as "risapooh" on Fox Go Server.

Table of contents Grade history Competition history First major title: Female Kisei twice in a row First international title: 7th Senko cup 50th Shinjin O 2025 Victories over all-time greats Head-to-head scores against current female rivals Friendships with other female professionals Style and training Links Pictures

Grade history

• 1 dan — 1 April 2019
• 2 dan — 21 June 2022 (after 30 wins)
• 3 dan — 8 March 2024 (after 40 wins)

Competition history

2021: Competed in the 40th Female Honinbo. Lost in the second round to Koyama Terumi.

2023: Ueno won the Female Honinbo challenger tournament, but was unsuccessful against the titleholder Fujisawa Rina, losing 2–3.

First major title: Female Kisei twice in a row

Ueno Risa won the 27th Female Kisei challenger tournament in 2023, beating her older sister Asami in the final. Then in February 2024, she defeated the title-holder, her good friend and rival Nakamura Sumire 2–1 to take her first title. This was the first time a major female title was contested by two teenagers. Nakamura had previously won every official game against Ueno, and won the first game of this match.

Since Asami is current holder is the Aidu Chuo Hospital Cup, she and Risa are the first sisters in 37 years to hold two titles simultaneously.

Risa successfully defended her title against Mukai Chiaki by 2–0.

First international title: 7th Senko cup

In March 2025, she reached her first final of an international Women’s Championship, the 7th Senko Cup. In the final, she beat the highest ranked woman in the world Choi Jung 9p in the final, in their first meeting. According to Kobayashi Izumi 7p, the win was decided by a brilliant first line tesuji (a monkey jump variant) that wiped out about 10 points of Choi’s right-side territory. Kobayashi wrote on her Twitter page:

Congratulations to Ueno Risa, the world’s best! ㊗️🎊✨

I was stunned by the ✨beautiful move that brought victory.

50th Shinjin O 2025

Ueno Risa is through to the third round of the Shinjin O. She beat Takahashi Suketasu? 1p then Watanabe Kandai 3p. She hopes to repeat the success of her older sister Ueno Asami who won the 48th Shinjin O in 2023.

Victories over all-time greats

(Based on Ueno Risa, Go ratings and game list, as of 1 Jun 2025.

In official games, Ueno Risa has taken games off some of the greatest of a previous generation, e.g.:

• Rin Kaiho: 1–0
• Takemiya Masaki: 1–0
• Cho Sonjin: 1–0
• Ishigure Ikuro: 1–0

Head-to-head scores against current female rivals

• Ueno Asami, 6p, Risa’s older sister, #3 female and #200 overall in the world, and #1 female and #27 overall in Japan: 1–5
• Fujisawa Rina, 7p, #8 female in world, #2 female in Japan: 3–9
• Xie Yimin, 7p, Fujisawa's predecessor as many years #1 female in Japan: 1–4
• Nakamura Sumire, 4p, prodigy, #14 ranked female and #3 female teenager in the world, #3 ranked female in Japan, #5 female in Korea, predecessor as Female Kisei: 2–6
• Aoki Kikuyo, 8p, 5× Women's Meijin, 4× Women's Kakusei, once Female Kisei: 1–0
• Suzuki Ayumi, 7p, #7 female in Japan, #33 female in world, twice Female Strongest, once Female Kisei: 1–0
• Kobayashi Izumi, 7p, 3× Female Honinbo, 3× Female Meijin, 2× Female Kisei, once Teikei Cup Female Legends: 1–0
• Koyama Terumi, 6p, 4× Women's Meijin: 1–2
• Yoshida Mika, 8p, 4× Female Honinbo, 4× Kansai Ladies' Tournament, once Women's Kakusei: 0–0
• Chinen Kaori, 6p, 5× Female Kisei, 4× Female Honinbo: 0–0
• Yashiro Kumiko, 6p, 2× Female Honinbo: 3–0
• Kato Keiko, 6p, once Women's Meijin, 0–0
• Koyama Terumi, 6p, 4× Women's Meijin: 2–2
• Mannami Kana, 4p, 2× Female Kisei: 2–0
• Mannami Nao, 4p, Kana’s younger sister, once Female Strongest: 1–0
• Nyu Eiko, 4p, 2× Female Strongest: 5–3
• Mukai Chiaki, 6p, once Female Honinbo: 6–1
• Hoshiai Shiho, 4p, once Female Honinbo challenger: 5–1
• Joanne Missingham, 7p, aka Hei Jiajia, #1 female in Taiwan: 0–0
• Yang Zixuan, #2 female in Taiwan: 1–0
• Rui Naiwei, 9p, long-time world female #1: 0–0
• Choi Jeong, 9p, current Korean and World #1 female: 1–0
• O Yujin, 9p, #7 female in world, #3 female in South Korea: 0–0
• Yu Zhiying, 8p, #2 female in world, #1 female in China: 0–2
• Zhou Hongyu, 7p, current World #4 female: 0–0
• Wang Chenxing, 5p, #16 female in world, #8 female in China: 0–0
• Kim Eunji, 9p, the highest rated female teenager in the world, and #2 ranked of all female players: 0–1
• Wu Yiming, 4p, #11 female and #2 female teenager in world, #5 female in China: 0–1
• Cho Seunga, 7p, #12 ranked female player and #304 overall, and #6 ranked female player in Korea: 0–0
• Tang Jiawen, 6p, #13 female and #6 female in China: 2–4

Friendships with other female professionals

When asked “Who is your best friend?” Ueno Risa replied:

There are a lot of them, but Nakamura Sumire, Jo Bun'en, and Mishima Hibiki.

Style and training

Ueno says in an interview on 1 Sep 2024 that she has a fighting style. So she trains by solving up to 5 hours of 300 tsume go problems a day:

When I study alone, I sometimes keep solving Go puzzles for about five hours.

80% of my study time is tsume-go, and 20% is playing games. My level of tsume-go is such that I can solve it after thinking about it for a few dozen seconds. I place importance on reducing mistakes.

Q: Why don’t you focus on solving difficult problems?

Because I think you can learn a lot by solving a lot of problems, rather than spending a lot of time on one problem. Of course, there are times when I solve difficult problems, but I place importance on doing a lot of them.

Q: How many Go problems do you solve in a day?

My goal is to solve 300 problems a day. If there are no games in the study group and I’m studying at home all day, I might solve Go problems for about five hours."

Links

• Ueno Risa, Japanese Wikipedia
• Ueno Risa, Nihon Kiin profile
• Ueno Risa, Go Ratings and Games
• Ueno Risa, Go4Go

Pictures

yu zhiying ueno risa asian games 2023 (Image credit: Foxwq.com)

ueno risa yang zixuan asian games 2023 (Image credit: Foxwq.com)

Ueno sisters amused: left: Ueno Asami; right: Ueno Risa, 2023 (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Good friends and fierce rivals Ueno Risa (left) and Nakamura Sumire 2023 (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Good friends and fierce rivals Nakamura Sumire (left) and Ueno Risa 2023 (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

From bottom left, clockwise: Ueno Asami, Nakamura Sumire, Fujisawa Rina, Nyu Eiko, and Ueno Risa (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

From back to front of the line: Nyu Eiko, Nakamura Sumire, Ueno Risa, Fujisawa Rina, and Ueno Asami (2023) (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Front, left to right: Jo Bun'en, Fujisawa Rina, Ueno Asami, and Ueno Risa (2023) (Image credit: Fujisawa Rina Twitter)

Ueno Asami selfie with (L→R) Mukai Chiaki, Ueno Risa, Nakamura Sumire, and Fujisawa Rina, Tachioi Cup, 2023 (Image credit: nikkansports.com

Ueno Risa and Nakamura Sumire chatting happily, 2023 (Image credit: ayarosmith Twitter)

Ueno Risa’s brilliant monkey jump variant vs Choi Jung 9p, Senko Cup final, 16 Mar 2025
(Image credit: Kobayashi Izumi Twitter/X )