From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 23 may 1990 Subject: Game 5 (professional, bishop handicap, no comments) Until now I have not posted any handicap games. Shogi has a quite sophisticated handicap system where white removes some pieces and makes the first move. Normally this is done in teaching situations, e.g. when amateurs play against professionals or when one wants to accurately determine the grade of a weaker player when he plays against a player of known strength. Also friendly games can be played with handicap when the difference between the two players is too large. When the handicap is chosen correctly very interesting and balanced games can result. The reason why it works in Shogi and not in Chess is that all pieces stay in the game. Because the better player is bound to get pieces in hand which he is supposed to handle with more skill, he will gradually diminish the effect of the handicap. He will never get to a stage that there are just not enough pieces anymore to change the disadvantageous situation he is in. Below follows a game with bishop handicap (roughly equal to 3 amateur dan/kyu grades) played in 1952 between the Meijin (Champion) Oyama and the young professional and rising star Futakami. Nowadays no professional can give another professional a bishop handicap and still win, but in those days it still occasionally happened. Pieter Stouten bitnet: stouten@embl ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Black: Futakami Tatsuya, 5 dan; White: Oyama Yasuharu, Meijin 1. ... S6b 2.P7f P8d 3.S7h P5d 4.P5f S5c 5.G4i-5h P6d 6.P6f P7d 7.S4h P4d 8.B7i G6a-5b 9.S7g K4b 10.K6h K3b 11.K7h P9d 12.P2f G4a-4b 13.P2e P9e 14.P3f P3d 15.P2d Px2d 16.Bx2d P*2c 17.B4f G6c 18.S3g P4e 19.B6h S4d 20.S2f G4c 21.P3e G6c-5c 22.Px3d Gx3d 23.P*3e G3c 24.S2e S2b 25.N3g G3c-4c 26.S3f P5e 27.G6g Px5f 28.Gx5f G5c-5d 29.P3d N7c 30.Gx4e N8e 31.S8f P7e 32.Sx8e Px8e 33.N*3e P8f 34.Nx4c+ Kx4c 35.Px8f Px7f 36.P*7e S*5f 37.Gx5d Kx5d 38.P*5e K6c 39.G*5d K7b 40.G*6c K8c 41.Gx4d G*6g 42.K8g Gx6f 43.S*7c S6g 44.G7h P7g+ 45.Gx7g Gx7g 46.Bx7g G*7f 47.K9h R4b 48.G4d-5c P*7b 49.G*8d Resigns.