From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 16 apr 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 631, April 17th 1996) Aw, so close and yet so far away. Moriuchi almost pulled off the impossible: coming from behind against Habu and taking the game. But what a fight! 121 moves with everything that makes Shogi exciting. Mistakes, brilliant moves, missed opportunities and a decision in byoyomi. The game finished at a 10.45 on Friday, leaving most of the commentators just guessing about what had really happened. The only thing that seemed certain was that Habu had finally won the game, but even on Saturday morning's Igo-Shogi weekly Tanaka 8-dan was not able to explain the game clearly to an eager TV audience. It seems like Shukan Shogi has more of the answers. Let's look at the moves and some of the vital comments: Black: Habu, Meijin White: Moriuchi, Challenger 1st game 54th Meijin-sen 1.P7f P8d 2.S6h P3d 3.P6f S6b 4.P5f P5d 5.S4h S4b 6.G4i-5h G3b 7.G7h K4a 8.K6i P7d 9.G5h-6g G5b 10.S7g S3c 11.B7i B3a 12.P3f P4d 13.S3g B6d 14.B6h P8e 15.K7i S5c 16.K8h B7c 17.S4f P6d 18.R3h G5b-4c 19.N3g K3a 20.P2f S2b 21.P1f B8d 22.P9f P9d An interesting incident happened here. The first day was coming to a close and it was time for sealing the move as the referee Igarashi, 9-dan announced. However, Moriuchi answered that he would play another move and just ten seconds before the time limit for sealing the move, he played 22... P9d. This is highly unusual and might even be considered to be against the etiquette, since it leaves the opponent only limited time to decide upon his sealed move. However, Habu has been doing something similar in the past, so... In any case, it seemed that Moriuchi did not like to seal a move. After the first day, most people thought that Moriuchi had played a too defensive strategy and that Habu had the advantage. 23.P1e (sealed move) P9e Moriuchi has no good plan to continue (this is called "sakusenmake" in Japanese or "strategic defeat") and therefore tries to force the position ("shobute"). 24.Px9e Lx9e 25.P'9g N7c 26.P3e Px3e 27.Sx3e P6e 28.N2e P'3g 29.Rx3g P8f 30.Px8f P'8e 31.S3d Gx3d 32.Rx3d Px8f 33.P'8c R9b 34.R3h S4b 35.B4f R6b 36.G'9d? A rare misjudgement by Habu. 36.G6g-6h is winning because 36... Px6f 37.P'6c followed by P'6d is very good for black. 36... Px6f 37.G6g-6h P6g+ 38.P'6c Rx6c 39.P'6d This is the position Habu counted on. He loses a gold, but he figured that taking both bishop and rook out of play would leave his opponent without a proper attack. However, it is not that simple... 39... +Px6h 40.Rx6h P'6g 41.R3h R4c 42.Gx8d P'3g 43.Rx3g P4e 44.B3e P4f 45.B6b+ Px4g+ 46.Rx3b+ Kx3b 47.P'4d Rx4d! Great move. Black threatened mate by 47... Px4c+ 48.Sx4c G'4b etc, but this is a brilliant counter. After 48.+Bx4d black is not threatening mate, so it is white's turn to go for the king. 48.+Bx4d R'5h? With only two minutes left, Moriuchi throws away the game. You can hardly blame him to make a mistake in a position as complicated as this, especially since the winning lines are even more complex. Shukan Shogi gives the following variations: 48... R'4h! (this looks bad, since black puts his rook in a forking position, but...) 49.+Bx2b Kx2b 50.B'6f P'3c 51.Bx4h B'6g! threatens mate and wins and if 49.P'3c Nx3c 50.Nx3c+ S2bx3c 51.G'2b Sx2b 52.+Bx2b Kx2b 53.B'6f then 53... B'5e! is a brilliant counter (54.Bx4h S'7i 55.Kx7i G'6h and mate). 49.B'9h! Only defense. After 49... S'8g 50.Bx8g Px8g+ 51.Kx8g the black king escapes up the board. 49... +P5g 50.G'6i! The difference. Black strengthens his defense and attack the rook at the same time. 50... R4h+ 51.+B6f S'6e 52.+Bx5g! +Rx5g 53.Gx7c G'6h 54.N'3d P'4a 55.P'4c Gx7h 56.Gx7h Sx4c? The final mistake. 56... Kx4c would still give white a glimmer of hope. For example 57.Nx2b+ G'6h 58.G'6i Gx7h 59.Gx7h G'6h and black cannot avoid sennichite (draw by repetition of moves). 57.R'9b G'4b 58.Nx4b+ Px4b 59.G'5c S3a 60.P'4d S3d 61.P6c+ resigns. White has no defense against Gx4b Sx4b P'3c and mate. Admittedly, Moriuchi was not as close to a win as Mori last year, who missed a mate in the first game of the Oza title match, but still he will not be too happy about the events in this game. He now has to win game two (April 24th & 25th) to avoid being blown away like Morishita last year, who also had a good chance to win game 1. Other Shogi news: All veterans are gone from the Kisei challenger knock-out. Fujii beat Tanigawa to reach the last four and Miura beat Yonenaga to reach the final where he will meet the winner of Fujii against Yashiki. Interestingly these last two also play the final of the Zen Nihon Pro at the moment. In the first game of the Oza knock-out (16 players) Takahashi beat Maruyama to reach the final eight. It will be a comfort for Takahashi to know that he can still win important games, after losing so many in the past couple of months. I guess that is enough for this week, Reijer -- 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