From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 25 dec 1998 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 769, December 23rd 1998) This week in Shukan Shogi the final round of the Osho league as main story. Morishita had been leading the league from the start, but a loss in the final round could have even cost him a play-off spot for the right to challenge Osho Habu. With Meijin Sato as his final opponent, a tough game was expected. That is not how it happened. Morishita played a very good game and controlled it from the early middle game. He won material (a knight against a silver) and had a king position that was very solid. In positions like this Morishita is very hard to beat. Sato tried everything he could, but in the end he was just one move short. After two years absence from title matches, Morishita gets another shot at winning his first major title. Previous attempts in Meijin, Ryu-O, Kisei and Kio all failed. He has one major problem to overcome: Habu, against whom he has a disastrous 7-25 record. The Osho match will start on January 11th. Morishita's win must have been a disappointment for Maruyama, who beat Yashiki but found that a 4-2 score was not enough to get him a shot at his first major title. Still, he will stay in the league and have another chance next year. The other two players who avoided relegation were Sato and Tanigawa. Tanigawa's survival is almost a miracle. After three straight losses and the bitter disappointment of losing the Ryu-O title 4-0, he has shown remarkable resilience by winning his final three games to finish 3-3 and save his Osho league spot. As a matter of fact, since losing the Ryu-O title, Tanigawa has won seven straight games. Where has that long slump suddenly gone? In the A-class Junisen two games were played. Kato (3-1) had still hopes of making a come-back on the highest stage, while his opponent Habu (1-4) was in serious danger of relegation. Kato went all-out attacking in a double Yagura game, but when he paused for one move to give his attack decisive strength, Habu took the opportunity for a devastating counter attack. A very sharp game that seemed to hang on a single move. Could Kato have continued his attack or was it all a little too much after all? At the post-mortem both players could not reach a conclusion. For Kato this ends hopes of become the challenger of Meijin Sato, while Habu can breath a little easier now. He needs only one win from the remaining two games to be certain of staying in the A-class next year. The other game in the A-class was between Inoue and Nakahara. Inoue had started with four straight losses, so he desperately needed to win this game. Nakahara had a 2-3 score, so needed only one more win to make himself safe. It was a strange game in which a middle game combination which looked to be obviously bad for Inoue (Nakahara: "Surprisingly, it was difficult.") was actually a very good way of playing. After that Inoue was ahead, but in the endgame it became difficult again. In the end a very relieved Inoue got his first win. This means that he now has his chances in his own hands again with a game against relegation rival Shima (also 1-4) in round 8. That game will probably decide who will be relegated to B1. In C2 round 8 was played and the tension at both end of the tables is really starting to build up with three rounds left to play. The undefeated players did not make a mistake. Sugimoto beat Ino, Katsumata beat Y.Sato, Kimura beat Numa and Namekata beat Matsumoto. Namekata had to fight very hard to keep his perfect record intact. Matsumoto had the lead in the endgame, but blundered it away in byoyomi. Behind the four leaders there was some movement. Matsumoto of course dropped from the followers, as did Kitajima, who lost against rookie Sato Shinya. Sato now has a 6-1 score and still has a good chance to promote in his first year in C2. Chuza recovered from his disappointing loss in the last round by beating Kubota. With 7-1 he also has good chances to promote. It seems like all other players are out of the promotion race. All four leaders are strong enough to win their remaining games. However, in my opinion the two strongest players Sugimoto and Namekata have the hardest schedule. They still have to play each other, while Sugimoto also has to play Kimura and Namekata has to play Sato Shinya. I think Katsumata has a rather easy schedule and will probably promote. About the other two spots I am far from sure. That is all for this week. Next week will be New Year's holidays in Japan, so I will probably not post a "This week in Shukan Shogi" then. The next issue is a double one anyway, so leaving it until the new year will not have any problems for the next issue. Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Complex Games Lab Electrotechnical Laboratory 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken, 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp URL: http://www.etl.go.jp/etl/suiron/~grimberg/ Tel: +81-(0)298-54-3316 Fax: +81-(0)298-54-5918