From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 19 dec 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 666, December 18th 1996) Because of all the stuff I have to take care of to make my Christmas return home a really carefree journey, I have not even had the time to properly look into Shukan Shogi this week. Therefore no anecdotes or other evaluations, just the results and how I interpret them. The most important professional games last week were the games in the A, B1 and B2 Junisen. In the A class the last remaining game of the sixth round was played between Kato and Yonenaga. Both players were 2-3 before the game and needed to win to stay out of trouble. Kato needed the win the most because of his bad ranking and he won. He is now the only player at 3-3. One more win out of the last three games should secure his place in next year's A-class. Yonenaga is now the highest ranked player with 2-4, which means that another win should keep him in the A as well, but he needs two to be sure. In B1 Inoue made a big step towards consecutive promotion by beating rival Minami. Because Takahashi surprisingly lost to Kiriyama, Inoue is now clearly in the lead at 8-2. Takahashi and Tanaka follow at 6-3. One more victory out of his last two games will secure Inoue debut in the top class next year, but even if he loses twice, he will probably make it. Poor Tsukada lost another one, making him the first player to be certain of relegation this year. His abysmal season is illustrated well by a relegation before the end of the year. In B2 the big game between leaders Maruyama and Goda (both at 5-1) was won by Maruyama. Co-leaders Ono, Kansaki and Hatakeyama all lost, which means that Maruyama has taken the sole lead. However, he is followed by 9 players at 5-2, three of which are even higher ranked than he is. Not much breathing space, but having an extra win is of course a big advantage. Promotion in this class will almost certainly be decided in the final round. In the Osho league Maruyama beat Fujii. The only significance was that Maruyama now still has hopes to stay in the Osho league. In order to avoid the prerounds next year he has to beat Nakahara in the final round and Nakahara is still in the race for the challengership. Finally, Yashiki got the honour of downing the new Ryu-O Tanigawa for the first time. Yashiki beat Tanigawa in the Kisei league, showing that a lead in all major professional categories (winning percentage, number of wins and games played) is not something to be scared of, but an inspiration. Well, that is all for this week. I am off to Holland for two weeks, so the next "This week in Shukan Shogi" will be in the next year. Happy holidays everyboy and the best wishes for 1997 (so what I am early ;-) ), 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