From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 6 jul 1990 Subject: The bizarre 1982 Meijin title match. Finally a Jishogi in the The bizarre 1982 Meijin title match & finally a jishogi in the archive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The 40-th Meijin title match between Meijin Nakahara Makoto and challenger Kato Hifumi (Judan) was one of the most bizarre ones. The Meijin title is contested in a best-of-seven match. Nonetheless, that years match consisted of no less than ten games. Two games ended in a draw by repetition of moves ("sennichite"). Both times this was to Kato's advantage, since they are regarded no-contest and replayed with reversed colours. Especially the second of the "sennichite" games was important because it was the decisive game of the match. The third draw occurred in the opening game and was a 223-moves "jishogi" (impasse). Moves are counted in the Japanese way, so 223 moves comprise 112 black and 111 white moves ! This game is archived in the SHOGI-L archive as SHOGI GAME18. A jishogi game is NOT regarded as non-contest, but it does not change the score either. Black and white for the first game are decided by a toss: 3 or 5 or 7 pawns are thrown into the air and depending on the majority of either pawns or promoted pawns ("tokins") that are lying face up, one has black or white. In subsequent games the colours change every time. Only when the last (normally 7-th) game is necessary, there will again a tossing of pawns ("furigoma"). The match developed as follows: 1. Kato - Nakahara Jishogi 2. Nakahara - Kato 1-0 3. Kato - Nakahara 1-0 4. Nakahara - Kato 1-0 5. Kato - Nakahara 1-0 6. Nakahara - Kato Sennichite Rpl 6. Kato - Nakahara 1-0 7. Nakahara - Kato 1-0 8. Nakahara - Kato Sennichite Rpl 8. Kato - Nakahara 1-0 The final result being: Kato 4 - Nakahara 3 - Jishogi 1. Another curious aspect of this match was that black did not lose a single game. Pieter Stouten embl bitnet>