From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 27 apr 1999 Subject: Re: Championships? titles? Jeff Okamoto XFILES INTERCON HP COM> writes: >> I do not think professional Shog players have a choice. Except for illness, >> they are supposed to play in all tournaments supported by the Nihon Shogi >> Renmei (the Japanese Shogi Federation). I have never heard of a player >> refusing to enter a tournament. > Do you have any idea what the schedule of a pro player is? From your > translations of the Shuukan, it appears that for the finals of tournaments, > the games occur once a week. Are the earlier rounds also played once per > week? Are the various tournaments staggered throughout the year, or do > they tend to clump at times? > Thanks for the info, > Jeff The schedule of a professional very much depends on how many games he wins. Most professional tournaments are knock-out tournaments, at least during the main part of the qualification stage. In the 98-99 season, the most games played was 59 (by Fujii, Habu and Tanigawa). In contrast, there were players who only played 12 official games in the 98-99 season. Title match games are usually played with one or two week intervals. However, there are games being played every day, except around New Year. The title matches are pretty much scattered around the year, but the qualification for next year's tournament usually starts even before the title match of the current year is finished. I can not tell you much about the rules for seeding players. Except for the final stages of qualification these seem to be rather complex. Usually, the top professionals only enter the qualification rounds at the very end, but exactly when seems to depend on the tournament. Hope this helps, 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