From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 11 feb 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 775, February 10th 1999) No title match game this week, so Shukan Shogi focuses on the 8th round of the A-class Junisen. In this next to final round there was the possibility that everything would be decided prematurely. If Tanigawa would beat Kato, Moriuchi would lose against Nakahara and Shima would lose against Inoue, both the challenger (Tanigawa) and relegation (Shima) would have been fixed. This would have been a big problem for the NHK, who is making a tradition of having major television coverage of the final round of the A class. Tanigawa did indeed win against Kato, but that was far from easy. Kato has been playing the Climbing Silver against Shikenbisha for more than 30 years. Tanigawa felt confident that he would get a good position, but Kato showed that after those 30 years he still has some new ideas in this opening. Tanigawa got in major trouble, but regrouped and waited patiently for his chance. Finally, he managed to turn the tables in the endgame and get his seventh straight victory. This means that he is assured of at least a play-off, since Moriuchi is the only one who can still get even with him. Moriuchi beat Nakahara to get to 6-1 and still keeps some pressure on Tanigawa's final game. Tanigawa's final game will be against Shima and for Shima this will be a big game as well. He beat Inoue to get his second win and now needs to win again in the final round to save his spot in the top class. There are three players that can still be relegated: Shima, Inoue and Nakahara. If both Shima and Inoue win, Nakahara will be relegated since he does not have a game in the final round. Shima and Inoue both have 2-5 scores, while Nakahara has 2-6. The final game of the eight round was between Maruyama and Morishita. Maruyama won to get to 5-2 in his first year in the top class. He is very unfortunate that Tanigawa and Moriuchi played so well, so he has no chance to challenge for the Meijin title this year. Maybe next year... In the C1 Junisen class the next to final round was played as well. A big upset: leader Yashiki lost to low ranked Maeda! This was a very painful loss for Yashiki, who now suddenly drops back to fourth place. His chances of promotion with big guns like Miura, Kanzaki and Fukaura in the lead seems to have become suddenly very small. To promote, Yashiki will have to win himself and hope that two of these three will crack under the pressure. This seems unlikely with former Kisei Miura and former Oi challenger Fukaura having a lot of experience in playing big games. In the Kisei leagues, Habu lost to Miura in the A group, missing his first chance to qualify for the knock-out tournament for challenging Goda. He now needs to beat Hatakeyama Nariyuki in the final round. Former Kisei Miura, on the other hand, joins Nakahara in the quarterfinals. In group B Fujii lost his second game to Minami and even though he still has a small chance to qualify, it is now very unlikely that he will add the Kisei title to his Ryu-O crown. Finally, last week also the Oi league started. There was only one game in the Red Group. Abe, who came very close to challenging for the title last year, had a good start by beating Sugimoto. That is all the news for this 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