From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 26 sep 1997 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 705, September 24th 1997) No title match games this week, so this week a little shorter than normal. It was an important week for many players though, with complete rounds being played in B1, B2 and C2 Junisen. Front page of shukan shogi, however, is the epic struggle between Morishita and Moriuchi in their third round game in the A Junisen class. Unexpectedly Moriuchi had started with two losses, and needed to win this game to keep small hope of challenging Meijin Tanigawa next year. On the other, Morishita had started well with two wins and with the game against Habu in the next round, he would very much like to stay one step ahead of his rivals. The battle lasted until about 3 o'clock in the morning and took 253 moves, 110 of which were played in byoyomi. Both kings at times seemed to be mated and had chances to enter. Morishita's king seemed to be without defense, but in defense is where Morishita is at his best. He had a choice of forcing Moriuchi in sennichite, but with a suicidal looking move he just managed to clear a very narrow path for his king to the other side of the board. After that the balance shifted a couple of times before Morishita finally managed to win. This ends Moriuchi's hope of becoming challenger this year and he will have to work hard to avoid relegation. Morishita on the other hand, will undoubtedly be a contender until the end. In B1 newly promoted Maruyama beat Kiriyama to score his fifth consecutive victory. Rival Tamaru lost to Tanaka and drops back to 4-2. Minami beat Mori to get to 4-1 and Murayama, who seems to be fully recovered from his operation a couple of months ago, beat Naito to join Tamaru at 4-2. The only other player with a chance for promotion to the A Junisen seems to be Tanaka, who now also has 4-2. In B2 the four leaders were reduced to three because Tomioka was beaten by Fujii. Tsukada (against Arimori), Ono (against Abe) and Hatakeyama Nariyuki (against Awaji) did not make a mistake and now have four wins out of four games. They are followed by some strong players like Urano, Goda, Kamia and Nakagawa, so they definitely cannot afford any mistakes. Goda, for example, still has to play both Ono and Tsukada. In C2 there was also one of the leaders that lost. Izuka lost against Matsumoto to drop to 3-1. Current leaders are Sato Shiyuji, Yagura, Namekata, Katsumata, Toyokawa (4-0) and Ueyama (3-0). These players are all very strong and able to win all their games. But some players with one loss also have their chances in their own hands. For example, former Oi challenger Fukaura will play Namekata in the final round. We are not yet halfway in this class of 49 players, so still a lot can change... More next 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)298-54-5918