From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 19 mar 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 627, March 20th 1996) HABU LOST!!! For those who thought it was impossible (and I began to be among them), it really can be done: beating Habu. Yashiki showed this in the semi-finals of the Zen Nihon Pro. He did even more, he beat Habu by gyakuten! Most of Habu's losses are when he makes a mistake in the early part of the game and is powered out. Actually, in an interview in Shogi Sekai this month he admitted that this was one of his weak points. If he lost, it would be by a wide margin. There are quite a number of games where Habu lost within 80 moves... Anyway, even though the Zen Nihon Pro is not a major, it is a very interesting tournament and (with all respect to Habu) it is good to see a final match of five games where Habu is not involved for a change. Yashiki will meet Shikenbisha (Fourth File Rook) specialist Fujii in the final. Yashiki at 24 and Fujii at 25 could both be considered young stars, even though Yashiki already has a lot of experience in big matches, winning the Kisei title when he was only 17 years old. However, he is in a slump the past couple of years. Fujii, on the other hand, has had some very good seasons, promoting twice in the past three years. He is now in B2. Another interesting detail. By losing against Yashiki Habu missed the Nakahara record for highest average for the season. His comment: "I am aware of that. It's a pity." seem to suggest that he does not mind too much. A long and extroadinary season has come to an end and he will be glad that he can give all his attention to the Meijin match where an eager Moriuchi is waiting... Most important news this week is of course the last round of the C2 junisen. Promotions from C2 tend to be mostly of two kinds. There are those who have been trying to get out of this death pool for years and finally succeed. A good example of this is last Nakagawa, who promoted to C1 last year after spending seven years in C2. Others seem not to notice how difficult it is to promote from a class with 50 players. Examples are Miura and Kubo, who promoted in their second year as a professional. This year Kitahama proved how easy it is to promoted from C2. Of course he was rather lucky to get a relatively easy draw without the big names, but it is still quite an accomplishment to win all ten games in a class where everyone is either fighting for promotion or for survival. The other two promotions were Sensaki (8 seasons in C2) and Nakata (6 seasons in C2). Both are very strong players, Nakata even won the Oi title once. However, for both players it was the first time they had promotion in their own hands. Sensaki had an easy game against Kase and was already finished at half past four in the afternoon. When he returned to the analysing room after dinner his face was flustered and it was obvious that he had drunk a little more wine than was good for him. Of course he deserved every drop of it. Nakata was a bit more down to earth about his promotion. He has had a couple of very disappointing seasons and his promotion was described by Shukan Shogi as "coming out of a long, long dark tunnel". All this was rather sad for Oshima, who has been a pro since 1976 and worked deep into the night to beat Ono, even though he already knew that his score of 9-1 would not be enough for promotion. One can only feel sorry for him... Final note on C2: 76 year old Maruta played his last game of a 50-year Shogi career and beat Ueyama. Maruta has the record for longest active professional and it will not be easy to beat that, although Nakahara might give it a try... Other news: in B1 also the final round was played, but promotion had already been decided. Sato lost against Kobayashi to finish 11 out of 12 and Mori beat Naito to finish with a strong 9-3 record. The only question was who would accompany Tomioka to B2. Nakamura had to win to save himself from relegation after promoting last year, but he did not manage to do that. Fukuzaki won, so Nakamura has to try to promote to B1 again next year. Let's see if it takes him another 12 years like last time... Final news (not in Shukan Shogi yet): Habu won his 9th title of the season by beating Nakagawa in the NHK television tournament. Habu won both TV tournaments this year and I do not think anyone has done that before. 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