From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 19 feb 1997 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 674, February 19th 1997) Well, it seems Habu is back to his invincible self again. Last week I already reported that he had won the first game of the Kio-sen against Morishita. It now turns out that he was very lucky in this game. With Habu in byoyomi and Morishita with only three minutes left, Morishita thought he had a made and played the wrong move order. The mate turned out to be an illusion and Morishita was only left with thoughts of what might have been. Next game will be played tomorrow. In this second game we will probably see Habu firing on all cylinders, because he has nothing else on his mind. He wrapped up the Osho-sen by beating Tanigawa again. This means that Habu now has beaten Tanigawa in the Osho-sen in eight straight games. It is weird that Tanigawa, who is clearly still in good form, could not win a single game in this match. But then again, it must be said that Habu did play exceptionally well. In a hineribisha game Habu sacrified a knight for attack, but when he decided to cash in on his positional advantage instead of sacrificing more material for a stronger attack, things became unclear again. However, when Tanigawa underestimated the power of a vulgar move that seemed to help only Tanigawa's position, the game was over surprisingly quickly. A far away tokin indeed turned out to be much faster than he thought. All the other important games were played in the Junisen this week. In B1, B2 and C2 the next to last rounds were played, and the promotion race now really is in its decisive stages. In B1 the promotion race is over. Takahashi beat his promotion rival Minami and joins Inoue in the A-class next year. For Takahashi this meant a return to the top class after only a one year absence. Last year he was very unfortunate to be relegated to B1 and it shows mental toughness that he got over that disappointment and played very well in B1. In B2 the last three years promotion was decided before the final round, but this year is different. Before the 9th round there were still seven players in the race for promotion and everybody won, except for Ono, who lost against promotion rival Tosa. This means that Murayama still is in the lead with a score of 8-1. However, he is followed by Nakamura, Tomioka, Tosa and Fujii who are all on 7-2 and all have a Junisen ranking higher than Maruyama. Also on 7-2 is Goda, but with his low ranking (only promoted from C1 last year) and only 2 spots in B1 available, he would be very fortunate to promote. Murayama and Nakamura have their faith in their own hands, and their last round opponents are not very impressive, so my guess is that they will promote to B1. In C2 the situation is now very clear. For the three promotion places, there are only four players left: Kokura (9-0), Hatakeyama, Okazaki and Suzuki (all on 8-1). All other players have to wait for next year. Hatakeyama seems to have the toughest last round opponent in Fujiwara. However, Fujiwara will be very disappointed to have dropped out of the promotion race himself with two straight losses and I expect that he will not put up much of a fight. My guess is that Kokura will get a perfect score, Hatakeyama will start to chase his twin brother who is now in B2. For the other spot I predict an upset in that Okazaki will lose to Ono in the final round and Suzuki will be the lucky one. Let's see what happens on March 11th... In the ladies Meijin-sen Shimizu beat Nakai in the fourth game, so that now everything will be decided in the final game. This match is indeed very tight with each game a hard fought battle. Having won the fourth game should give Shimizu a slight advantage, but I think this is too hard too call. Next week we will know who won... 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