From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 18 jun 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 640, June 19th 1996) Now that the most important professional title match, the Meijin, is over, the professional season is really getting under way. Challengers for the Oi, Oza and Ryu-O will be decided in the next month and also the Junisen groups are being started. In the A-Junisen times are tough for the players in the top positions. Last week Tanigawa (no. 4) lost to Murayama (no. 8) and this week Sato (no. 9) beat Morishita (no. 2) and Kato (no. 7) beat Shima (no. 5). Sato is trying to become the third player in a row to win the A-junisen in his debut year. In C1 Miura, one of the favourites to promote to B2 this year, had a bad start against newly promoted Sensaki. Miura controlled the game, but could not finish the job against Sensaki's Anaguma. Veteran Taki pulled off a major upset by beating Sanada with a brilliant endgame move with his king defenseless on 5e and a board full of pieces in hand (Rook, 2 Bishops, 2 Golds, 2 Silvers and 4 Pawns). Tough times for Horiguchi, who saw his efforts to win from a better position end in sennichite late in the evening and lost the replay which he could (should?) have won as well. Sato had a good week in his up and down season, because he also managed to qualify for the major knock-out of the Ryu-O. No small feat, because he had lost in the first round of the group knock-out against Tanaka Torahiko and had to fight his way past Waki, Shima, Fukuzaki and Tsukada to keep his dreams of a rematch with Habu alive. Maruyama picked up a pile of money by beating Urano to take the title in group 3. Both players were already qualified for the main knock-out. The final spot in this knock-out is for the winner of the game between Yonenaga and Minami. In the Oza Takahashi and Tanigawa advanced to the best four by beating Waki and Murayama. In the Oza it has also become a question of who will get a chance to try again against Habu, because of the remaining six players in the tournament, four have lost to Habu in a title match in the past year. Finally, Nakai is really determined to keep her only title and keep Shimizu from becoming the women's Habu. After losing the opening game of the ladies' Osho in Atlanta, Nakai now has won both the second and the third game in this best-of-five title match. Next thursday the fourth game will be played at the Shogi Kaikan and I just happen to be there :-), so I am looking forward to an interesting game. 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