From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 1 apr 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 782, March 31st 1999) This week in Shukan Shogi not much shogi news since neither the Meijin match or the Zen Nihon Pro Tournament match has started yet. The most important games played were two quarterfinals of the Kisei challenger tournament. Yonenaga played Moriuchi and Namekata played Miura. Yonenaga had written on his New Year cards that he was still dreaming of taking another title before he would be 60. Still four years to go, but the Kisei was a good chance with only three more wins to get to Habu. However, Moriuchi did not allow himself to be swamped by Yonenaga's "Quagmire style" and calculated a risky position very accurately. Moriuchi has to play Namekata next, who won the game between the two players having a 70% season. Miura seemed to be better in that game, but had to change his plans after overlooking a hidden defence by Namekata. This change did not work and Namekata won the game. The other two quarterfinals are Habu-Nakahara and Sato-Tanigawa. The second game is especially interesting, since it is played less than a week before the start of the Meijin match between these two players. Also, the game is too important to hold anything back. The winner might have a significant psychological advantage in the Meijin match, especially since both players have played 28 games do far and both have won 14! I am sure Sato really wants this game badly, since he has lost six of his last seven games. In the first group of the Ryu-O qualification tournament, Moriuchi got some kind of revenge against Tanigawa after losing the play-off of the A class Junisen. He needed a very nice defensive rook drop to stop Tanigawa's decisive looking attack. Moriuchi now needs only one more win to qualify for the challenger final. On the other hand, Tanigawa now has to play Habu to try and get a return match with Fujii. In the Oi tournament, two former Oi title holders played each other in the second round of the White group. Goda thought he was winning against Takahashi, but actually the situation was unclear until Takahashi made a mistake by attacking instead of choosing a risky variation disposing his own king. This looked bad, but would have been very hard for Goda. Both players now have a 1-1 score and have to play the leaders Yagura (Goda) and Yashiki (Takahashi) in the next round. That was all of the professional news for this week. There was some interesting amateur news as well though. Last year, I lost a game in an amateur tournament that I thought was extremely rare. Both me and my opponent had entering king and both players had exactly 27 points. I lost that game because I was black. At the time I was not sure I should feel bad, since even though I lost I had done it in a very special way. This week in Shukan Shogi a report on the challenger tournament of the Asahi amateur meijin. In the final Yamada (Minami Kanto) and Niida (Hokkaido) played for the right to challenge Suzuki Junichi. The first game Yamada and Niida played ended in sennichite after 78 moves. The replay with reverse colours ended in mutual entering king after 214 moves. After counting both players had exactly 27 points. Niida lost because he was black. Tough luck! More next week, 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