From: Pieter Stouten CHEMSCI1 ES DUPONT COM> Date: 12 sep 1994 Subject: Brunch Tournament: Pieter Stouten Resurrection a success (Somehow neither John nor I thought of posting this earlier. Sorry/PS) Pieter Stouten Resurrection Shogi Brunch Tournament On Sunday, 22 May 1994, a shogi tournament was held at my house n Neckargemund in honor of Pieter Stouten's visit. Pieter came to Europe from the USA, where he has been living for more than a year, to attend a conference. Afterwards he dropped by Heidelberg to see old friends and colleagues. Pieter was a strong guiding force in Shogi here at EMBL and throughout Europe. So it was appropriate that we play a little shogi. I provided pancakes and Gert Vriend donated a bottle of superb French champagne for first place. Following brunch we began a quick-play handicap round-robin tournament. A number of different nationalities and playing strenghts were represented, from Glay Chinea of Cuba, who had only just learned the game, to Pieter, a veteran with more than 10 years tournament shogi experience. As the sun shined down, the tournament began with some crazy play including at least one "ni-fu" illegal move. Quickly the favorites pulled ahead of the field, leaving the rest of us to enjoy the sun, mimosas (orange juice and champagne) and Napoleon brandy. Gert looked to make a clean sweep with convincing victories over myself and Pieter in rounds 2 and 4; while in round 5 Yoshikazu succumbed to Pieter leaving Gert the only undefeated player. All of the games in round 6 were meaningful to the final standings. Pieter came out of a complicated middle game to crush me and remain in contention, while Glay and Veronique battled for the last spot. And in the game which decided first place, Yoshikazu beat Gert to create a 3-way tie for first place. Thus, the champagne was awarded to all three and by unanimous consent it was joyfully popped and delightfully consumed, topping off a fun event. Seems we will have to do this again sometime. John Kenney. PS After the regular tournament we played a very interesting shogi variant - the rules courtesy of Yoshikazu - called 4 player shogi. 4 players with their own pieces play in turn with the object to mate the others. There are no formal partnerships - everyone is out for themselves. However, it turned out that players would temporarily form aliances to attack a stronger opponent or prevent the mate of another (a so prevent the player giving mate from winning the other player's pieces in hand). And, so, for instance, several times during the game players who had been mated were saved by others relieving mate by attacking the one giving mate! It became clear during play that we would need to clarify the rules to allow the game to be played in reasonable time. However, it was great fun and will be repeated as soon as we get four players together again. RESULTS TABLE no name ntl grd scr results per round 1 Pieter Stouten NL 3-d 4 5+ 6+ 3- 2+ 4+ 2 Yoshikazu Tahara J 5-k 4 4+ 5+ 6+ 1- 3+ 3 Gert Vriend NL 6-k 4 6+ 4+ 1+ 5+ 2- 4 John Kenney USA 2-k 2 2- 3- 5+ 6+ 1- 5 Veronique Sanguedolce F 16-k 1 1- 2- 4- 3- 6+ 6 Glay Chinea Cub 15-k 0 3- 1- 2- 4- 5- The tournament was a round robin event with 15 minutes/player/game and 20 seconds byoyomi. All of the games were played with the following standard handicaps: grade difference handicap 0 none 1 left Lance 2 Silver 3 Bishop 4 Rook 5 Rook + left Lance 6 Rook + Silver 7 Rook + Bishop 8 Rook + Bishop + right Lance 9 Rook + Bishop + both Lances 10 Rook + Bishop + both Lances + Knight 11 Rook + Bishop + both Lances + both Knights 12 Rook + Bishop + both Lances + both Knights + Silver 13 Rook + Bishop + both Lances + both Knights + both Silvers For grade differences larger than 13 an 8 piece handicap was used. The choice of which Silver was left to the giver of the handicap.