From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 5 jan 1999 Subject: These weeks in Shukan Shogi (no. 770, First, a happy new year to all shogi-l readers and best shogi wishes for the last year of this millenium. Shukan Shogi has ended the year with a double number. Of course the end of the year is used for looking back. Here are the top ten news stories of 1998 as selected by Shukan Shogi: 1) Fujii takes the Ryu-O title by a stunning 4-0 victory over Tanigawa 2) Sato Yasumitsu becomes the 10th Meijin in history 3) Shimizu takes all four major women's titles for the second time 4) Murayama dies at 29 5) Yonenaga is relegated from the A-class and retires from the Junisen to become a free class player 6) Goda takes the Kisei title six years after his first challenge 7) Habu defends four titles and adds the NHK Cup, the Zen Nihon Pro tournament victory and the JT Nihon Series 8) Fujita became the youngest woman professional at 11 years old 9) Maruyama was the first player ever to clear the B1 Junisen class undefeated 10) Amateur players Endo and Hayashi prove by victories in the Ryu-O tournament that they are closing in on the professional level Another interesting list is the one with the most interesting moves of 1998: * There are two players fighting for the prize of the biggest blunder of 1998. The dubious winner is Ishida, who in a game against Kato Hifumi had a won position and calculated accurately how he could win after defending against the check Kato just gave. This took him quite a long time, but when he found the win, he was so relieved that he immediately played the winning move, forgetting to defend against the check. Kato of course took the king. * Closely second, but much more important, was the blunder by Goda in the challenger final of the Oza challenger tournament. Goda had a clearly won position and only needed to defend accurately against Tanigawa's attack. He did not. He played a move which allowed his opponent to play a mate in one move. * The most dramatic mistake was probably by Yonenaga. He was fighting for his life in the A class and had a vital game against Inoue. He was winning, but missed a spectacular counter by his opponent in the endgame. This virtually cost him the A class spot he had held for 26 years. * According to Shukan Shogi, the best mate was played by Habu in the 6th game of the Osho title match against Sato Yasumitsu. A very difficult 35 move mate indeed. However, Habu kind of stumbled across this mate when desperately checking in a position that seemed to be hopeless for him. * For those who are not superstitious, there was one position in 1998 that seemed to be cursed. It was played three times in tournament play and in all three games white won. However... In the first game, Tomioka-Nishikawa, Tomioka blundered away a won position. In the second game, Morishita-Kitahama, Morishita missed a forced mate and then blundered so that he was mated himself. In the third game, Takahashi-Minami, Takahashi decided to threaten mate instead of taking a free bishop. With this bishop, it was now possible to easily defend and win. Had Takahashi just taken this bishop, winning would have been no problem. So, objectively the position seems to be much better for black. Will anyone dare to play it again... * In a game between Kobayashi and Tanigawa pawns were dropped back on the edge, leading to a position with a black pawn on 9f and a white pawn on 9d but no lances on the 9th file. Very curious... There was also a rehash of the data analysis of professional games of two years ago (the data for 1998 not being available yet). The data shows the following interesting features: 1) Black's winning percentage is pretty stable at 52.1%. In the last 12 years it has been 54% three times, but lately the winning percentages of 52.2%, 51.7%, 52.8% and 52.7% seem to show that black's advantage is only marginal. 2) The move 1.P2f seems to be dying a slow death. The winning percentage of black with this move was at an all-time low at 46.1%. Only Nakahara (65.2%), Habu (77.8%) and Fukaura (77.8%) score better than 50% with 1.P2f. Of these three, only Nakahara is a real 1.P2f player. 3) Hiura (6-dan) had a 18-2 score with black (90%). This is pretty amazing for a player in the C1 Junisen class. He is followed by Kubo (87.5%) and Maruyama (85%). All play 1.P7f almost exclusively. Then some real professional shogi news: ======================================= 1) In the Kio challenger tournament, Fujii beat Kobayashi in the final to get within one win of challenging Habu. Kobayashi has to try his luck in the loser's second chance knock-out. There he will meet Meijin Sato Yasumitsu, who fought a gruelling 365 move battle with Shima. The first game ended in jishogi after Shima allowed Sato to take a bishop which got him the points he needed to force a draw. The second game also ended with both players having an entering king. This time Shima overlooked a nasty combination that gave Sato a rook for two golds. These extra three points were enough to secure victory. Shima still could see the funny side of it: "This was the first time I gave away both a bishop and rook on the same day". 2) Tanigawa stretched his winning streak to eight by winning his fifth consecutive game in the A-class Junisen against Maruyama. It was a very convincing victory and emphasised what a remarkably quick comeback to his top level after a year that must have been very disappointing for him. With only Moriuchi (4-1) as his remaining rival, his chances of a rematch with Sato look very good. That's all for now. From next week things are back to normal. 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