From: Reijer Grimbergen NICI KUN NL> Date: 10 nov 1995 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no.609, 11/8) Sente wa sente! Or translated: black has the initiative! I just read that Sato won the third game in the Ryu-O, which means that the first three games of the match have been won by the player having black. It seems we have a real battle on our hands for the Ryu-O title. Thus far this match is living up to the high expectations. Of course Shukan Shogi cannot report the result of the third game (isn't the Shogi-L great?) and I have therefore no info of how Sato won the third game. However, the second game turned out to be a flawless performance by the title holder Habu. Sato choose the rather unusual strategy of Youdoufuribisha, which is a strategy where white plays moves that seem to lead to static rook but as soon as black has played a Yagura castle, white switches to ranging rook. Sato is not really renowned for playing ranging rook (I can not remember any game by him playing furibisha), but after being confronted with the Youdoufuribisha in a game against Waki in June he adopted the strategy himself in a game against Okasaki in July. Sato won both these games and seemed confident that the strategy was good. Habu proved otherwise. He managed to make his bishop work (a major problem in Yagura against Furibisha) and he converted this strategic win into a clear endgame victory, thereby tying the match. The other top story of this week is the win of Maruyama over Fukaura in the Shinjino tournament. Maruyama is now the first player in the 26 year history of the tournament to win the Shinjino two times in a row. Needless to say, the Shinjino is a full knock-out and you cannot participate if you are too old or too high ranked (Habu, for example, is no longer allowed to play in this tournament). Interestingly, Maruyama also used the Youdoufuribisha strategy. It was a very close battle, where Maruyama finally got the upper hand by an original gold manouvre. Other interesting news is the win of Gouda over Nakahara in the JT Nihon series. In this unofficial tournament, which is very popular because the players play "on the road" in front of large audiences, only the 12 strongest players (title holders and A-junisen players) are allowed to play. Gouda, being only 5-dan, looks a little out of place here. However, he was holder of the Oi title two years ago and managed to win the JT series two times in a row. Therefore, despite losing his title, he is still allowed to defend his JT title. By beating Nakahara in the semi-final, he has now won 9 games in a row in this tournament and has to beat either Moriuchi or Yonenaga to participate in next year's tournament. In the A-junisen one game in the fifth round was played. Nakahara (1-3) played Shima (2-2). This was an important game for both players. Nakahara had to win to keep out of relegation trouble and Shima had to win to keep his hopes of being the challenger of Habu alive. It was a close game where a natural defensive gold move turned out to be Shima's decisive mistake. Nakahara won, and because of his high ranking in the A-class he will not have too much trouble staying in the top division. In B1 a complete round was played (the 8th) except for the game between division leader Sato and Aono, because of the Ryu-O obligation of Sato. Sato will have been pleased to hear that second placed Tanaka Torahiko lost to Kiriyama. Tanaka now falls back to 5-3, which means that Sato is now two points clear and needs only three points from his last 5 to be sure to promote to the top division. Best bet to join him at this moment is Mori, who reached a score of 5-2 by beating Fukuzaki. That's all for this week, Reijer