From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 7 mar 1997 Subject: Report on the 1st ISPS Friendship Shogi party Even though it has already been more than a month ago that the first ISPS friendship party was held, I still like to share my impressions of this most enjoyable event with you. If there is another one next year, I strongly recommend it to anyone living in Japan (and abroad for that matter, after all, what's the cost of a plane ticket these days :-)? ). Reijer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first ISPS Friendship Shogi party ===================================== Shogi kaikan, February 2nd 1997 ------------------------------- On February 2nd the first ISPS Friendship Shogi party was held on the 2nd floor of the Shogi Kaikan. Before going there I expected only about 20 or 30 people to attend this day and I also expected that I would know all the foreign participants. I was very wrong... When I arrived at about 11 o'clock in the morning there was already a lot of activity and I estimate that about 30 people were playing Shogi then. This number would almost double during the day. Furthermore, there were a number of foreign faces that I had never seen before. I was even more surprised to find out that they could even beat me... The day was basically divided into two parts. From 11 until about 6 there was the possibility to play shogi. Usually a foreign player was matched against a Japanese player of about equal strength. Also, in the afternoon there was the opportunity to challenge a number of professional players that attended the party. Harada (9-dan), Moriuchi (8-dan), Ono (6-dan), Kitajima (4-dan) and Takahashi Yamato (1-dan) played simultaneous games against anyone who wanted to play them. I was lucky enough to get a game against the ever cute Yamato-chan. For a long time I managed to keep my concentration on the board and get a better position. However, in the endgame Takahashi's mesmerizing beauty (and of course her great endgame strength :-) ) got the better of me and I lost. The foreigner sitting next to me (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten) was much less impressed and managed to win an even game against Takahashi-san. He said his strength was 2-dan, but I was later convincingly beaten by him, thus reminding me that it is not only Japanese players that can teach me Shogi. Apart from the possibility to play Shogi there were also a couple of Western chess sets and if I am not mistaken also some Korean chess sets and some Chinese chess sets. After playing, there was a reception with plenty of food and drinks. Harada-sensei did do the honours for the kanpai in his ever humorous style. He took pride in not losing a single game in his simultaneous exhibition and rightly so, considering he has just turned 73 on March 1st. After that there were a couple of speeches. Most of them were in Japanese, the most important one by the founder of the ISPS, Sanada-san. I also said a couple of words, but when I had to talk I relied on the translation skills of Yamada-san of the ISPS. That not only Shogi is seeking to spread around the world was made clear by Mr. Son, a Korean chess player who talked extensively about Korean chess in his speech and gave everyone his meishi with a Korean chess problem on the back. After the speeches we were entertained by some non-Habu magic. Two professional magicians, Miss Kobayashi Keiko and Mr. Akimoto Tadashi, showed us some Shogi related tricks. The end of the party was marked by a prize giving ceremony. Mainichi communications, a jewelry dealer and several professionals had kindly donated prizes that we could choose from. All in all this was a great day with all of my favourite activities combined. Playing Shogi (and winning most of the games), meeting old friends (for example, I met Mike Loftus from England, who was now working as an English teacher in Kanazawa), making new friends (I met several strong foreign players I never saw before), drinking beer, talking to beautiful women and be able to take a nice prize home at the end of the day. At this moment it is still unclear if this will be a yearly event, but I for one hope that it will be and I also hope that even more people will attend this event next time. Even though I am also a member of the ISPS, I was too busy at the time to contribute anything. I would like to thank the ones who did for making this a great day. Reijer Grimbergen -- 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