From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 1 may 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 633, May 1st 1996) Let's start right away with the second game of the Meijin-sen and Shukan Shogi's comments: Black: Moriuchi, Challenger White: Habu, Meijin 54th Meijin-sen, 2nd game, April 24th & 25th 1996 1.P7f P8d 2.S6h P3d 3.P6f S6b 4.P5f P6d 5.G7h S6c 6.S4h S5d 7.G5h R6b Habu chooses an aggressive Yagura variation. 8.S4h-5g G4a-5b 9.P2f G3b 10.K6i K4a 11.K7i P7d 12.P2e B3c 13.P3f S4b 14.G5h-6g P4d 15.P1f S4b-4c 16.N3g P1d 17.S4f End of the first day. This time Moriuchi did seal the move, helped by the experienced Mori (9-dan), who was the referee for this game. 17... P6e 18.P5e Px6f 19.Bx6f S6e 20.Bx8d R8b 21.B3i P'6f 22.Gx6f Sx6f 23.Bx6f G'5f From the sealed move this variation is almost forced. Moriuchi's comment: "I had confidence in this position". Habu's comment: "I made a small mistake in the opening". Moriuchi now clearly has the upper hand. 24.B3i Gx4g 25.S6h-5g R6b 26.S'5f P'8h Strong move to put the gold in a bad position. 27.Gx8h Gx4f 28.Sx4f S'6g Gives black the rook in hand with the king in a bad position, but as Habu felt it was his only fighting chance. 29.P'6c Rx6c 30.P'6d Rx6d 31.P'6e Sx5f+ 32.Px6d +Sx4f 33.P6c+ Gx6c 34.R'7a? Key point of the game. Shukan Shogi: "An amateur would play the rook fork R'6a on king and gold in no time. This would actually have been good, but Moriuchi chose R'7a". Hiura (6-dan), the Shukan Shogi commentator: "34.R'6a S'5a 35.Rx6c+ +Sx3g 36.R7h and now Moriuchi felt that is was difficult to use the dragon on 6c after 36... S5b. However, after 37.+R6g +Sx3f 38.G7g white has no way to continue". Habu's comment on this position: "Unhealthy Shogi". 35... S'5a 35.R6h? The wrong plan often brings several mistakes in a row. Moriuchi is fixated on using the second rook in attack. Much better is 35.Rx8a+ and only after 35... +Sx3g 36.R6h. Or 35... P'6g 36.B8d +Sx3g 37.R1h followed by G7h. The big difference with the game is that white can not use the promoted silver in attack and the bishop on 3i is working well. 35... P'6g 36.Rx6g S4c-5b 37.Rx8a+ +S5f 38.R6e P'6f 39.P'6h P7e White's pieces have come alive and black can not use his rook and his bishop anymore. A difficult endgame follows... 40.G'6b! Good fighting move. 40... S'6d! Great defence. Getting a rook after 40... Gx6b 41.Rx6b+ S'9b 42.+R7a G'8a is not good because of the brilliant 43.G'4i!! and white has no use for the rook anymore. 41.N4e?! An overplay? The decisive mistake? One of the many questions in this complicated game. The normal continuation would have been 41.Gx5a Bx5a 42.S'6b. It is interesting to see how this position was judged differently by both players. Habu: "42... G'6a 43.Sx6a+ Sx6a 44.+Rx6a S'5b 45.Rx6d Gx6d 46.+Rx9a and I think Moriuchi will win in this variation". Moriuchi: "42... Gx6b 43.Rx6d S'7c 44.Rx4d S4c and the position is far from clear". 41... Px4e 42.N'4d Sx6e 43.Gx5b K3a 44.G7h? Difficult to see, especially when you are running out of time, but this is probably the decisive mistake. After 44.S'4a things would still have been extremely complicated. For example: 44... R'5i 45.K7h Bx4d 46.+Rx5a P6g+ 47.Px6g R5h+ 48.K7g Bx5e and black seems to lose, but Hiura is far from sure about this variation... 44... R'5i 45.K8h P6g+ 46.S'4a +Px7h 47.Kx7h Bx4d 48.+Rx5a At this point many still thought that Moriuchi would win. After all, 48... G'7i 49.K7g Bx5e 50.K8f P'8e 51.K9f N'8d 52.K9e P9d 53.K8e G7d 54.K8f and white has only mate with a pawn drop! 48... +S6g!! It is moves like this that make Habu special. He has already calculated a long and difficult mate. 49.Px6g R5h+ 50.S'6h G'8h 51.K7g Bx5e 52.S'6f Or 52.K8f P'8e 53.K9f N'8d 54.K9e P9d 55.K8d G7c 56.K8e G7d 57.K9f P9e 58.K8f Gx8g 59.Kx8g Sx7f and mate. 52... Sx7f 53.K8f Gx8g resigns Because 53... Kx7e 54.B6d Kx7f 55.G8f K6e 56.+R5d and 53... K9f 54.N'8d K9e 55.N'8c K8d 56.G7c are mate. Next game: May 9th & 10th in Yokohama. Other Shogi news: Fujii is getting some stick from Yashiki. In two weeks they have played three games and Fujii has lost them all. This week they played the second game of the Zen Nihon Pro (Yashiki now has a 2-0 lead in this best of five match) and the semi-final of the Kisei challenger knock-out. Yashiki will now play Miura for the right to challenge Habu in this tournament. In the Oza Murayama and Shima advanced to the best eight. Murayama beat Yonenaga and Shima beat newly promoted Urano. Finally, some good news for Tanigawa fans like me. He beat Minami in the Ryu-O group to advance to the final knock-out. A gyaku-ten win may be just what the doctor ordered after the bad form Tanigawa displayed in the past couple of months. That's all for this week, 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