From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 4 sep 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no.651, September 4th 1996) Is Habu back to his old unbeatable self? Has he recovered from the shock of losing his Kisei title? Judging from the fifth game of the Oi match against Fukaura one would say so, because he crushed the anaguma that Fukaura had built against his fourth file rook. Habu chose a quick attack formation and his attack gained power after an error of judgment by Fukaura in the early stages of the middle game. After that, Fukaura failed to find the only way to make it difficult for Habu and the game ended in only 78 moves. Habu thus successfully defends his Oi title and now has held the Oi for four consecutive years. I also read in this morning's newspaper that Habu has won the first game of the Oza match against Shima. It really seems that he is back on top form. Last week was a very bad week for Sato Yasumitsu. He lost two very important games that can make or break a season. Firstly, he lost the first game of the Ryu-O challenger match against Tanigawa. Tanigawa played the Nakahara formation against the B3c variation and got an early advantage that quickly increased after a Sato mistake. On the 56th move Sato thought for 23 minutes, decided that he had no moves and resigned, much to the surprise of the professionals and the journalists following the game in the "hikaeshitsu". Of course Sato still has a chance for a rematch against Habu, but a 1-0 deficit in a best-of three match is not easy to overcome. The other big game Sato lost was in the A-junisen against Moriuchi. Games between these two are likely to be very good study material, so the game was followed closely by many strong professionals like Tanaka Torahiko (9-d), Shima (8-d), Murayama (8-d), Nakamura (8-d), Goda (6-d) and Sensaki (6-d). All stayed until the end of the kansosen (post-mortem analysis), which was a little after 2 o'clock in the morning. The aigakari opening resulted in a very difficult middle game with both kings in constant danger. At that stage both players missed a difficult variation that would have led to an advantage for Sato. Still, the position looked unclear and at one point Sato seemed to have boxed in Moriuchi's king by two rooks, but this was only an illusion. With some good defensive moves Moriuchi neutralised the attack and won. In C2 a complete round was played (except for the game between Fukaura and N.Ito, which was delayed because of the Oi match). Biggest news of the round was that Tamura for the first time played a game that lasted until after the dinner break. Tamura usually plays very quickly, but this time he had decided to take his time. With good results, because a little after midnight he beat Izuka, a very strong opponent. A major upset was that Namekata, one of the favourites for promotion lost to Seki. Players with three wins after three rounds are Hatakeyama (making a move to catch up with his twin brother who is in B2?), Yagura (young 4-dan), Kitajima (not so young 4-dan :-) ), Fujiwara, Miyata, Ogura and Kanki. These are definitely not the names of the favourites to promote, except maybe for Yagura. Biggest surprise is the name of Kanki, who is generally considered to be one of the weakest professionals and is mainly known for his funny appearances on television. With two relegation markers it seemed that he'd better focus on his entertainment career, but with 3-0 he seems to have extended his live as a Shogi professional with another year. His remark that he is aiming for promotion should of course not be taken too seriously :-). 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