From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 10 dec 1991 Subject: Report of the first German Open Shogi Championship. The First German Open Shogi Championship. Nieheim, 23 & 24 November 1991. ========================================================================= Just a short word about the German open championship for those that missed it. Although it was difficult to find, being in a village with less than six houses miles out in the country, the tournament was a marvellous success by any standards. Acommodation was comfortable, the food was excellent as was the Detmolder pils which we very nearly ran out of, and the atmosphere was extremely friendly, it was a real pleasure to have participated in this tounament at which some serious shogi was being played. The field sported no less than three previous European champions and Mr. Suzuki from Japan (!) who came in fourth place in the tounament. I don't think it came as any surprise to anyone at the tournament that Mike Sandeman was going to take the tournament. His Shogi was consistently elegant and he appeared to be playing by "shape" alone. There was some small unpleasantness when one of the competitors in byoyomi did not move until five or ten seconds after "move!" was called and he sacrificed the game to a disgruntled opponent who didn't want to claim a win under those circumstances. I think this only underlines the absolute necessity for the use of the by now well-known Citizen "byoyomi clocks," which are totally irritating but totally fair. Although many people find them distracting, I'm sure that the noise would eventually be absorbed into the "sound-world" of Shogi tournaments and cease to be a distraction. As you can see from the results list (available soon in TOURNA RESULTS), thirty people took part and I think this was a good turn out for the first German open. Make a date for next year. This tourney was one of the most pleasant weekends I have had in a long while! Alan Sawyer embl heidelberg de>