From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 25 jun 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 641, June 26th 1996) Is Habu finally showing some signs of vulnerability or was the first game of the Kisei just a fluke? That Habu loses badly in a title match game is not new (see last year's Oi-sen game 3 and 4 which Habu lost in 76 moves and 63 moves respectively), but lately he seemed to have overcome even that small weakness. Not so in the first game of the Kisei. If you didn't believe it after playing through the kifu kindly supplied by Fujimoto-san, I can assure you that Shukan Shogi is just as surprised as you are. The game was over long before dinner with Habu still having 1 hour and 40 minutes and Miura having 1 hour and 12 minutes of their original five hours. For Miura it was his first win in a title match and that will be a considerable boost to his confidence and make him an even more dangerous challenger. Winning a best-of-five match from 2-0 down is a huge task even for Habu, so the second game (June 29th) is really a big game for both players. I still think that Habu can turn it around, because when I spoke to him on Friday at the reception of the amateur Ryu-O tournament he seemed very relaxed and on top of things. In the ladies' Osho Shimizu kept her hopes of winning all women's titles alive by winning the fourth game. It was a convincing win by Shimizu, but in this match I can also say from personal experience that the titleholder (in this case Nakai) does not seem to be too shaken about the defeat. I have never had the opportunity to talk at length with Nakai (I only met her briefly in Frankfurt during the first game of the Ryu-O there), and she turned out to be very pleasant company indeed when I met her on Friday. Shimizu, unmarried and very beautiful, has been my favourite so far, but Nakai did a good job of winning me over to her side ;-). This week also very big games in the Junisen. In the A-class the game between Mori and Nakahara was played. I saw Mori when he was taking a short stroll through the Renmei building during the middle game and there seemed to be not much left of his pleasant, outgoing personality. If he would have lost, you might say that he was worried. But in fact he won a very complicated hineribisha game with a couple of very nice sacrifices, so I can safely say that his stern appearance was one of determination :-). This means that the four players who are ranked lowest in the A-class all have won their first game. This is very unusual. B2 is a completely different story. Last week a complete round in this class was played and of the ten highest ranked players nine won their first game. Only Waki (no. 6) lost, but because he lost to Izumi (no. 7) this can also not be called a big upset. The other two players who won were debutants Goda and Hatakeyama. It seems like B2 might be a class with a clear difference between the players aiming for B1 and players desperately trying to avoid relegation. In C2 also a complete round was being playing played (only Y.Sato did not play). Because there are 51 players in this class, it is of course impossible to make any predictions. Of the top 9 players, 8 won their first game and it is highly likely that among these will be one or two players promoting to C1, with Fukaura and Namekata as the most likely candidates. Dark horse for Shukan Shogi is D.Suzuki (4-dan), but I think Yagura(4-dan) or Kitajima (4-dan) are also players with a chance to promote. I met Kitajima last week, played a couple of games with him and was even invited to his home. He is very strong and has had a very good season so far (9 wins and 2 losses). Also, his English is quite good, so I think Europe is very lucky with his visit next October. 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