From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 20 may 1998 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 738, May 20th 1998) No title match game this week, so this is a little earlier than usual. Shukan Shogi opens with the challenger game between Goda and Fujii in the Kisei. This was an heroic battle which was only decided in the final moves. Fujii had the lead early on, but when he allowed Goda to pull back his promoted bishop in his own camp the game became very close. In the end it was a question of "mate or no mate?". Goda played a check to which Fujii chose the worst reply. He was mated quickly and the players agreed after the game that it was probably mate, but that there were many variations that were much more difficult than the game sequence and that Goda would probably not have found the mate in byoyomi. However, Shukan Shogi gave the position to a computer to solve and the computer was not able to find a mate in a vital variation. Mate or no mate, Goda was very lucky to win this game and now will play Yashiki for the Kisei title. The first game will be played on June 13th. In the Oi tournament the fourth round in the red group was played. Leader Sato played Yagura, who only had a 2-1 record going into the game, but had beaten Tanigawa in the pre-rounds. Yagura does not play the opening with the same name often, but this time he did. Brave but foolish perhaps, since Sato is the big expert on the Yagura. Sato got a good position, but Yagura hung in there and until very late in the game had chances to win. However, finally Sato won and now leads the red group with a perfect 4-0 score and one game to play. He can only be caught by Takahashi, who beat Kitajima by some very pretty moves in the endgame. Takahashi has three points and has to beat Shima in the final round and hope for a mistake by Sato against Kitajima. In the Oza tournament Tanigawa was the last player to reach the quarterfinals. He beat Kato in a Shikenbisha game that could have gone either way. Usually Kato plays the Bogin (Climbing Silver), but this time he played the S4f Quick Attack against Tanigawa's Shikenbisha. Kato was attacking strongly and Tanigawa had to show all of his defensive and attacking skills to win. He will now play Kisei Yashiki next. Other quarterfinal games are: Goda-Takahashi, Fukaura-N.Hatakeyama and Morishita-Minami. Two rookies played their first professional game last week. Yamazaki beat Kanki in a game that went from opening to endgame without a middle game. Before lunch the position was already very violent, but in the end Kanki could not finish his attack and 17-year old Yamazaki cashed in his material advantage. Ira also played his first game as a pro. Since he is a free class player he has to score a big winning percentage to be allowed into C2. Every game is therefore a big game for him. The first was against Ono Yaichio and the experience of Ono proved to be too much for Ira. That is all for this week. At the moment of writing the fourth game of the Meijin-sen is being played. Like all the other games it can be followed live on the Internet at http://www.mainichi.co.jp/tokusyuu/meijin98/index.html. Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Complex Game 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