From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 8 jan 1997 Subject: These weeks in Shukan Shogi (no.667 & 668, December 25th, First of all a happy new year to all of you on this list. For me this promises to be a very important and busy year, but I am planning to continue this series for as long as I can. Due to a two week holiday in Holland I am three weeks behind, but fortunately in these weeks only two Shukan Shogi have been published. Furthermore, around new year the professionals have few games as well, so this will be a short round-up. Of course 1996 was a Habu year with Habu becoming the first player to do the impossible by winning all seven major titles in the same year. However, this year will also be remembered for the remarkable comeback of Tanigawa, who ended the year in great style. Not only did he win the Ryu-O title by beating Habu 4-1 and did he win the JT series where the strongest Japanese players travel all over Japan, he also managed to get a rematch for the Osho title. A few weeks ago it seemed almost certain that Murayama would be the challenger, but deteriorating health made him lose both of the last two games in the league as well as the play-off game against Tanigawa that was over in just 80 moves. The osho match starts tomorrow and I wouldn't be surprised at all if this will be very close. Tanigawa full of confidence and Habu determined not to lose more ground might prove very interesting. The other challenger fight that is nearing a finish is the that in the Kio. There are only three players left who can become the challenger of Habu. Morishita has the best chances, because he beat Kobayashi in the final of the normal knock-out. Kobayashi now has to play Nakahara (who beat Moriuchi) for the right to play Morishita again. However, Morishita needs only one win against either Nakahara or Kobayashi, while they have to beat Morishita twice to become the challenger. I do not think either of them is capable of beating Morishita twice, so my money is on a Habu-Morishita match. In C2 the 8th of eleven rounds was played and things have noy become much clearer. Leaders Fujiwara and Kokura did not make a mistake. Fujiwara beat rookie Matsumoto and Kokura beat Oshima. Both are now 7-0 and I think especially Kokura has a big chance of promoting with three rather weak opponents ahead. He is not very well-known, even though he promoted to 4-dan when he was only 20 years old (but that was 8 years ago!). Fujiwara has much tougher opposition with promotion hopefuls Hatakeyama (6-1) and Yagura (5-2) still to play. Fujiwara and Kokura are followed by Hatakeyama, Okazaki and Suzuki. Normally one would expect 3 of these five to promote to C1, but Namekata and Fukaura hope the pressure is too much for the top players. That was pretty much it in these weeks. For your entertainment, these are the 10 most significant Shogi events in 1996 according to Shukan Shogi: 1) Habu takes all 7 major titles 2) Young Miura takes the Kisei from Habu 3) Tanigawa beats Habu in the Ryu-O by winning four games in a row 4) Shimizu wins all major lady titles 5) A daily soap with Shogi as storyline starts on television (called "Futariko" or "Twins") 6) Shogi has become a young man's game. The combined age of the Meijin match contenders Moriuchi and Habu was 50, which has never been that low. 7) Everybody got married last year: Habu (March 28th), Fujii(March 31st), Tsukada (April 15th), Ito No (August 3rd), Fukaura (September 28th) and Nakagawa (October 6th). 8) The san-dan league was never so dramatic as the last year. Last year nine players would have been promoted if they had won their last game. None of them did. Talking about pressure... 9) Kato Jiro, author of the famous "Shogi wa fu kara" died at 86. 10) 77-year old Maruta retired after a 50-year Shogi career. And here are the five best games of 1996: 1) Habu-Moriuchi, game 1 of the Meijin-sen 2) Fujii-Yashiki, game 2 of the Zen Nihon Pro 3) Miura-Habu, game 5 of the Kisei-sen 4) Usui-Nakai, game 2 of the ladies open tournament 5) Habu-Tanigawa, game 2 of the Ryu-O sen 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