From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 10 apr 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 630, April 10th 1996) The professional Shogi season is now officially over (even though there are still tournaments under way) and Shukan Shogi presents us with a summary of the results of all the players. I have tried to pick out some interesting facts. First of all, there are only 13 official tournaments in a year and Habu has won nine of them. Also, Habu has scored the second best season average ever. Only ten times a player has scored .800 or more for the season (Nakahara has done this twice and Habu three times). However, Habu is the first A-class player to do so. Scoring big is easier when you are a rookie, since you will not get too many tough opponents and you will not play in title matches. Losing one game in a best of five match and your average already drops to .750. A good example of the outstanding performance by Habu is the fact that Shukan Shogi has called off its yearly contest to vote for the MVP of the year. Since Habu is clearly MVP by any standards, Shukan Shogi now only asks its readers to vote for the best young player and for the best lady pro (this is clearly Shimizu). Other interesting facts: Maruyama won 17 games in a row and thereby had the longest winning streak of the season. He specializes in long streaks, because last year he also had the longest winning streak with 24 wins. Even though Fukauara did not seem to do as well as last year, he played the most games (66). Since most pro tournaments are knock-out, this is significant. It means that Fukaura did well in most of the tournaments he participated in. He also scored the most wins, together with Maruyama and Habu (46). Final interesting point: Kushida, who voluntarily withdrew from the Junisen last year, has a season record of 13-11. As far as I know, this is the first time that a so called "free class" professional makes kachikoshi (majority of wins). The match for the Zen Nihon Pro title has started between "Ninja" Yashiki and Fujii and boy what a fight it was. It took 168 moves and about half of the game was played in byoyomi. Many interesting things happened in the endgame where Fujii had an entering king which was never really safe and was finally mated in the centre of the board. The game may not have been the best one of the year, but it sure was one of the best fights I have seen for a long time. Well, tomorrow the Meijin match starts (yes, life coverage on NHK for the lucky few in Japan like me ;-)) and Shukan Shogi has its final warm-up article on the class between the 25-year olds. Mostly a rehashing of old facts, but there is also an interesting comparison between Moriuchi and Habu since their Shoreikai days. It looks a little bleak for Moriuchi who has been behind from the start and lost more and more ground. He must take comfort in the 2-2 score in their last 4 games. Reijer P.S.: And yes, another professional gets married. This time it is Ito No, 4-dan. His bride to be must be quite a gambler, because Ito's future as a professional is very much unclear. Two years ago he promoted to 4-dan by taking the last opportunity he had before he was kicked out of the Shoreikai because of the age limit of 30 and he has been struggling as a pro since. He just received a relegation mark in C2 and his seasonal average of 9 wins and 17 losses (.346) is not very encouraging. Well, maybe it is real love ;-). -- Reijer Grimbergen Electrotechnical Laboratory Palcious Tsukuba 302 1-1-4 Umezono 1-24-8 Ninomiya Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305 JAPAN 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp Tel: 0298-59-1606 WWW: http://www.etl.go.jp:8080/etl/suiron/~grimberg Tel: +81-(0)298-54-5080 extension: 67431 Fax: +81-(0)298-58-5918