From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 7 jul 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 796, July 7th 1999) No title match game in Shukan Shogi this week, at least not one of the men's title matches. However, there was a shocking result in the ladies Osho title match. Invincible Shimizu lost her Ladies Osho title to her own pupil Ishibashi, losing three games in a row after a comfortable 2-0 start! Moreover, in the final game Shimizu lost a winning position in byoyomi. No wonder that both players did not have much to say after the game. Especially Ishibashi did not seem to realize that she had just won her first ladies title. At 18 years and 7 months, she is now the fourth youngest title holder ever. (I do not think anyone will beat Hayashiba's 14 years and 3 months.) For Shimizu this defeat must be hard to swallow. She was in complete control for most of the match and she must be wondering what went wrong. Also, losing this title meant that she has to wait at least another year before she can be crowned "Four Title Queen" for winning all women's professional titles at least five times. In the Ryu-O Tanigawa and Takahashi played for the final spot in the challenger knock-out tournament. Tanigawa had the better position for most of the game, but in the end he gave Takahashi a chance to get back by rushing his attack where simple material gain would have been enough for a comfortable win. However, Takahashi missed his chance and that means that Tanigawa still is in the race to win back the Ryu-O title he lost last year. In the Oza the final two remaining quarterfinals were played. Fujii got the early lead against Nakahara, but he lost his way in the endgame, badly misjudging a sacrifice of a rook for a silver. Nakahara is in great form these days and punished Fujii's mistake in great style. In the other quarterfinal Moriuchi blundered away a good position in byoyomi against Goda. Goda is showing signs of fatigue because of his tough schedule, but he still managed to get one step closer to another title challenge. The semifinals are Goda-Nakahara and Maruyama-Sato. That is all 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