From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 27 aug 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no.650, August 28th 1996) Top story this week is of course the fourth game of the Oi title match. This was a very big game for Habu to win. After losing the Kisei title and the third game of this match, Habu must have felt a little tense. Losing this game would give Fukaura an immense confidence boost and would also mean that Habu could not finish the Oi match before the Oza match starts. I do not know about the other people who followed the game on Internet (I checked in about every hour to see the progress), but I found the game hard to follow. Of course I could see the moves, but I had some trouble in understanding what was going on. Even the slightest comments might have been helpful, but these were only available some time after the game. When I saw the game, I thought Habu came out on top in the early middle game and won by a one move margin. I was wrong (again :-) ). Fukaura played the defence against Habu's Hineribisha superbly and managed to force an advantageous exchange of rooks. However, being afraid of a certain attack Fukaura played an unneccesary defensive move, which was virtually a "pass". Usually one plays dearly for a pass in the decisive stage of a game at that level and Habu got a strong attack going, but he needed a little luck to be able to finish it off. His luck was that a very strong looking bishop drop (attack and defense) was actually a mistake that made things easier for Habu. Fukaura was pressed for time (he had only five minutes left) and played that nice-looking bishop quickly. After that it was all over. A sigh of relief from Habu, who will want to get rid of Fukaura as quickly as possible now. The fifth game will be played tomorrow and Thursday. This was an important week for a lot of professionals, with complete Junisen rounds in B1, B2 and C1. In B1 Takahashi and Tanaka were thus far leading the pack, with Takahashi in very good form with a 14-3 score for the season. However, in round four he met a very determined Naito, who was 1-1 and of course wanted to stay out of trouble. Naito is one of the leading specialists in the Ai-gakari (together with Nakahara). Analysis of last year's games showed that the black winning percentage with this opening is only 44%, but that doesn't bother Naito. He controlled the game and won a close endgame fight with some difficult moves. Takahashi now shares second place with Fukuzaki. Tanaka is still undefeated, he did not play in the fourth round. Big problems for Tsukada who lost his fourth game in a row. He desperately needs a winning streak to get safe. In B2 Fujii won a big game against rival Murayama. Both are favourites to promote this year and Fujii has some strong opponents waiting (Goda, Hatakeyama) so he will be very pleased with himself. Also, co-leaders Tomioka, (big endgame blunder against Waki), Tosa and Hatakeyama lost. Only Ono (against Tanaka), Kamia (against Suzuki) and Goda (against Katsuura) have a 3-0 score. Still early days, of course. In C1 Nakagawa is looking very strong. He beat new Kisei Miura, who is now 0-3 and out of the race this year. Nakagawa is 3-0 and ranked third in the class, so his prospects are really good. Other players who are at 3-0 are Kansaki, who beat Ito and (rather surprisingly) Murooka, who beat Abe. Murooka, who is primarily known for his various trips to Europe to play chess, is in the middle of an 8 game winning streak, giving him a season's score of 8-2. 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