From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 30 oct 1997 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 710, October 29th 1997) No title match in this week's issue of Shukan Shogi, so SS opens with the victory of Shimizu over Yauchi in the final of Shukan Shogi's own tournament, the Ladies Open. Shimizu may have found a way to stop young Yauchi, because she also equalized the Ladies Oi match with some fine play after Yauchi chose the wrong opening strategy. Two losses against the same opponent in one week, can Yauchi bounce back to win the fifth and decisive game in the Oi match? Of course there was some male shogi as well last week. In the A-class Nakahara and Yonenage played their 180th game against each other (Nakahara lead 100-79). Both players were 1-2 in the A-class before the game and really needed a win. It was a very tough Aigakari game where Yonenaga missed an opportunity to bring a knight into play, which gave Nakahara just the edge he needed. Yonenaga now on 1-3 and with his bad Junisen position in mind, he will have a tough time to avoid relegation. In the C1 class the half way mark was reached by playing the fifth round. This class is heading for an early decision. Before the round there were three players with a perfect record: Sensaki, Nakata Isao and Suzuki. Sensaki and Suzuki won (against Ishigawa and Horiguchi), but Nakata lost to Kitahama. However, all followers also lost, so after five rounds Sensaki and Suzuki are 5-0, while Nakata is the only player with 4-1. This makes Sensaki and Suzuki strong favourites to promote with only one complication: they play each other in round 7. In the Osho league Moriuchi beat Sato Yasumitsu and Takahashi beat Murayama. Moriuchi is now 2-1, behind leader Tanigawa at 2-0, while both Sato and Takahashi are now 1-1. Murayama has now two losses and will not compete for the challengership this year. Fujii beat Hatakeyama Mamoru in the second game of the Shinjin-O title (this title is for young players only). He thereby took a decisive 2-0 lead in this best-of-three match and won the title for the second time in a row. He is only the second player to do this after Maruyama did it two and three years ago. More next week, Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Electrotechnical Laboratory 1-1-4 Umezono Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp WWW: http://www.etl.go.jp:8080/etl/suiron/~grimberg Tel: +81-(0)298-54-5919 Fax: +81-(0)298-54-5918