From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 12 jun 1997 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 690, June 11th 1997) This week no major games in Shukan Shogi, so here is just an overview of the games played last week: 1) The Junisen started last week with the first round of the B1 junisen. The 13 players in B1 have to play 13 rounds and therefore have the toughest schedule of all. First game to finish was the game between Tanaka Torahiko and Mori. Tanaka won this double anaguma game at 4:20 in the afternoon. Tanaka has been very close to returning to the A-class ever since he was somewhat unfortunately relegated three years ago. This good start makes him a contender right away. Other games of interest were between relegated Murayama and promoted Nakamura. Murayama's physical condition is still far from good and he might need an operation soon (I can't figure out from Shukan Shogi what exactly is the matter with him, though). Still, he decided that this game was more important and played Nakamura and won. Nakamura's comments after losing the same position twice in a couple of days (the position also occurred in his Oi league game against Sato): "I do not learn very well, do I?" The other promoted player from B2, Maruyama, did better by beating Aono and is a strong favourite to promoted right away to the A-class. 2) In the Oi leagues the final rounds were played and there were no surprises. Sato Yasumitsu beat rival Nakamura to get a perfect 5-0 score. He now has a shot at the challengership of the Oi title for the first time in six years. However, his opponent is Goda (who beat Ono to win the white group) and that will be a very interesting match-up. Goda is not called "Mr.Oi" for nothing. He is a former Oi title holder and if he wins it will be his fifth Oi title appearance. 3) In the Ryu-O almost all finalists are known. The following players have already qualified: Sato Yasumitsu, Tsukada, Yashiki, Sensaki, Abe, Namekata, Sanada, Matsumoto and Kondo. There are two spots remaining and those two spots will be taken by the winners of the games Shima-Moriuchi and Morishita-Waki. The Ryu-O tournament promises to be a very strong and very young tournament this year with Habu as the most prominent non-participant. 4) Finally an amusing double interview with the two Kisei match players Miura and Yashiki. A match-up between two C1 players with very different personalities. The serious, soft drink sipping Miura against the flamboyant, beer drinking Yashiki. Both players won the Kisei as their first title by beating a great player in the final game (Yashiki beat Nakahara, Miura beat Habu). But that is where the similarity ends as the following quotes show: Q: "What is your impression of your opponent?" Miura: "He is very strong, winning all games in the Kisei tournament. He plays very frightening moves and is very strong in winning bad positions in the endgame. I will have to be careful to the very end." Yashiki: "Actually I do not really know. He seems very strong but I always like to play my own game and I do give much thought to my opponents. I might look over some of his games when the Kisei match is near, but that is all." Q: "How about studying Shogi?" Miura: "I usually study alone, using gamescores and my computer to analyse fashionable openings. It is a bit troubling that I have not been able to play much recently. Serious games are the best training." Yashiki: "I do not study Shogi very much. I read the sports paper and solve the tsume shogi problem in it. That takes about 1 minute, so you could say that I study Shogi about one minute every day." Of course, Yashiki is a famous liar :-). -- 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