From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 9 oct 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 656, October 9th 1996) The fight in the Junisen classes is slowly getting into the middle stages, and for most players this means that a win or loss can make the difference between fighting for promotion or fighting against relegation. This is certainly true for the A-junisen, the top class that decides the challenger of the Meijin. Last week three games were played in this class. The most interesting fight seemed to be that between co-leaders Moriuchi and Mori (both at 2-1). Who would join Morishita on 3-1? Mori came well prepared for a long fight, carrying a two liter bottle of mineral water and a 1.5 liter bottle of Japanese tea into the playing room, but when the game finished there was more than half of it left. Remarkably, the game did not make it into the evening session, ending at 5:46 in the afternoon. Mori only had himself to blame for that. Although obviously one of the strongest players, he sometimes has the tendency to play too quickly and overlook something (see also the second game of last year's Oza). Against Moriuchi he made two mistakes in a row in a position that seemed to be a little better for him. This almost immediately cost him the game. At the time of the mistakes, Mori had used only 1 hour and 10 minutes, while Moriuchi had used 3 hours and 34 minutes. Tanigawa (2-1) played Shima (0-3) and proved again that he is back to top form. From April to June his score was a mediocre 4-5, but since then he has a score of 13-2 and he is in the middle of a 9 game winning streak. Shima seemed to be impressed or too desperate for a win, because he rushed his attack and lost in only 81 moves. Tanigawa thus shares the lead with Moriuchi and Morishita and might give Habu a real fight in the upcoming Ryu-O match. The third game in the A-class was between Sato and Murayama, both at 1-2. Sato won that game, keeping his hopes for challenging Meijin Habu alive, while Murayama has to fight relegation. In C1 only a couple of games were played to balance the schedule in this class with an uneven number of players. Surprisingly, Murooka won again (against Ishikawa) and is the sole leader at 4-0. His bad ranking in the class does not give him much breathing space, especially since he is followed by big guns like Abe (4-1), Kansaki (4-1), Nakagawa (3-1), Sanada (3-1) and Hiura (3-1), who are all higher ranked than he is. Still, in the remaining games he only has to play Yashiki and Sanada, so there is still a good chance to promote. In the Osho league Fujii beat Takahashi to join Tanigawa and Murayama at 1-0. The Osho league has just started, so it is hard to tell who will challenge Habu, but I think Tanigawa has a good chance to get a rematch. In the Kio tournament Morishita was the first one to reach the final four by beating Goda. Bad week for Goda, because he also lost in the JT series against Tanigawa, thus ending a winning streak of nine games and three consecutive tournament victories in this tournament. 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