From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 19 nov 1990 Subject: Report on the 1990 European Championship, Frankfurt, Germany. European Championship 1990 ========================== Sorry for the delay, but here is the report on the European Shogi Championship. Only one month late ! It all started in April 1990, when suddenly I received the travelling schedule of two representatives of the Nihon Shogi Renmei. They were making arrangements for a game of the very important Ryu O title match to be held in Frankfurt. They planned to have an Amateur Ryu O Candidate tournament at the same venue and time. Over some good food and drinks the idea emerged to merge this Candidate tournament and the Europan Championship into one big tournament. Half a year later this Shogi feast took place. On the evening of 18 October there was a reception with several professionals (amongst them two lady professionals !), representatives from Japanese companies and from Shogi and other thinking sports organizations. The next day the professional game between Ryu O Habu Yoshiharu and challenger Tanigawa Koji started. On the Saturday this game ended in a victory for Tanigawa [who now leads with 3-1 in the Ryu O match / PS]. Also on Saturday 20 the European Championship had started. Never had it, or any European tournament for that matter, attracted so many players. There was even Adam Atkinson, flying in from Rome, just to play here ! The 60 participants were divided into 3 groups. In the top group 22 players contested the European Championship, the first kyu group (1 to 5-kyu) contained 19 players, just like the second kyu group (6 to 15-kyu). This year the finish was closer than ever before with four players scoring 5 points out of 6 games. To my great surprise I was one of those 4. The others were Katsura Yamamoto and Eric Cheymol (both France) and David Murphy (England) who became European Champion on sum of opponents' scores (SOS). I think, however, that nobody will dispute David Murphy's title. Looking at the way he (and the others) played he was the only player who really deserved the title (and a free trip to Japan, including participation in the amateur Ryu O tournament, as well !). Having almost no playing rythm, I expected a position in the middle, but a loss in the second round made me play some weaker players and because former European Champions Reijer Grimbergen and Arend van Oosten happened to have an off-game against me, I bubbled up. I became second on SOS, but without having played any of the other 5-pointers. To me this means that the format of the EC needs revision and I think that the national associations and the Federation of European Shogi Associations will consider carefully what the next EC(s) should look like. The first kyu group seemed to be won by Frans Roquas (Holland) without problems. However, a loss in the last round against Anthony Denver-Fedder (England) resulted in the latter to snatch the title, again on SOS. The second kyu group was won unopposed by B. Clement-Demange (France) who had already won his group at the recent Kent Open, too. Father and son Soelter shared second/third place, both with 5 points. Frank (the son) had just one Sonneborn-Berger point more than his father. In this group also the King of Illegal Moves played. Illegal moves were abundant in all groups, but John Kenney managed to trash three very good positions in this way ! We were honoured by the presence of Mr. Horiguchi Koji, one of the directors of the Nihon Shogi Renmei, who gave the prices. Other top professionals played simultaneous games or commented on the games of the EC that were just played. Their help and encouragement is gratefully acknowledged. All in all it was a fantastic tournament, sponsored generously by Yomiuri Press and Ricoh Europe so that all participants had free overnight accomodation, free drinks and rolls and did not have to pay an entrance fee. The organizing committee and tournament controller Paul Schroeder had done a very good job and everything ran smoothly. I can only hope that the ECs in subsequent years will be just as succesful ! Pieter Stouten embl bitnet> embl-heidelberg de>