From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 16 jan 1997 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 669, January 15th 1997) Will 1997 be another Habu year? One would expect that he would be very tense before the first big game of the new year: the first game of the Osho-sen. After all, he was playing Tanigawa again and Tanigawa had just beaten him four times in a row in the Ryu-O match. However, in the program Igo-Shogi Weekly, Habu was not tense at all and laughed more than he spoke when answering the questions of the interviewer before the game. How he managed to keep relaxed I do not know, but he did win the game in impressive fashion (with white!). Unfortunately I have had no time to play through the game, but the comments seem to indicate that Habu played an almost flawless game. The pace of the game changed a couple of times. It started fast, then slowed down for a long time to finally erupt in a fast endgame where Habu managed to kill all Tanigawa threats. Next game: January 20th & 21st. No rest for Habu these days, though. He might have lost in the Zen Nihon Pro against Nakahara last week, but in a couple of weeks Morishita will wait for him in the Kio. Morishita beat Nakahara for the second time, after Nakahara survived the second chance round. This meant that a third game to decide the challenger was unneccesary and that Morishita gets a third chance to get a major title. It is also the third different tournament after losses in the Ryu-O (to Tanigawa) and Meijin (against Habu). Maybe three times lucky? More good news for Habu in the Kisei. In the pre-round group A he beat Tanaka Torahiko and thereby qualifies as the first player for the 8 player knock-out that will decide the challenger of Miura. It is clear that Habu likes to show that Miura's victory last year was just a fluke. In the A-junisen one game was played last week. Sato(4-2) beat Yonenaga(2-4), thereby keeping his chances of becoming the challenger of the Meijin Habu very much alive. He still has to hope that leaders Morishita and Tanigawa will make a mistake. His own schedule with games against Shima and Nakahara seems to be "easy" enough... For Yonenaga it was his fourth loss in a row and even though he is well positioned in the Junisen (3rd) he will have to beat either Mori or Tanigawa to be certain to be in the A-Junisen next year. Sorry, too busy for more 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