From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 30 jun 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 795, June 30th 1999) This week in Shukan Shogi a lot of Tanigawa. Most important is his win in the second game of the Kisei match against Goda. Unlike the first game (which was won easily by Tanigawa), Goda had chances to win this one. Poor play in a good position quickly made these chances disappear. Here is the game with comments: Black: Goda Masataka, Kisei White: Tanigawa Koji, Challenger 70th Kisei-sen, Game 2, June 23rd 1999 Interesting detail before the game. It is a custom that the challenger first enters the playing room, after a couple of minutes followed by the titleholder. At the start of the second game, it was Goda who first sat down at the board. With this, Goda showed how important winning this game was for him. 1.P7g-7f 0/0 0/0 2.P3c-3d 0/0 2/2 3.P2g-2f 0/0 0/2 4.P8c-8d 0/0 0/2 5.P2f-2e 1/1 0/2 6.P8d-8e 0/1 0/2 7.G6i-7h 0/1 0/2 8.G4a-3b 0/1 0/2 9.P2e-2d 0/1 0/2 10.P2cx2d 0/1 0/2 11.R2hx2d 0/1 0/2 12.P8e-8f 0/1 1/3 13.P8gx8f 0/1 0/3 14.R8bx8f 0/1 0/3 15.R2dx3d 0/1 0/3 16.B2b-3c 0/1 0/3 17.R3d-3f 24/25 0/3 18.S3a-2b 0/25 0/3 19.P*8g 3/28 0/3 20.R8f-8e 0/28 5/8 There it is again. The R8e-variation of the Yokofudori. A couple of years ago it was impossible to imagine that a Yagura game would become a rarity. These days, the R8e-variation is much more popular than the Yagura. 21.R3f-2f 2/30 0/8 22.K5a-4a 0/30 2/10 23.K5i-6h 25/55 0/10 24.S7a-6b 0/55 4/14 25.S3i-3h 3/58 0/14 26.G6a-5a 0/58 3/17 27.P3g-3f 4/62 0/17 28.P7c-7d 0/62 5/22 29.S3h-3g 15/77 0/22 30.P7d-7e 0/77 49/71 31.P3f-3e 57/134 0/71 32.P*2e! 0/134 5/76 Nice move. White's biggest problem in this variation is the weak point 3d. Goda was aiming for that in his previous move, but this pawn sacrifice gives white an extra tempo for building his own attacking base on 7f. 33.R2fx2e 6/140 0/76 34.P7ex7f 0/140 1/77 35.R2e-2h 1/141 0/77 Since 35.P3d loses the rook, black retreats. 36.P*2f!? 0/141 23/100 Another nice looking pawn sacrifice. It should not have worked, though. 37.S3gx2f?! 53/194 0/100 Both players see the same thing. 37.Rx2f fails because of 38.P*8f Px8f Rx8f P*8g P7g+ and after exchanging rooks black's camp has too many holes. However, both players missed that black can play K5h instead of P*8g. Then black seems to have a good position. Even though taking with the rook was probably better, it can not be said that white has the better position from here. 38.N8a-7c 0/194 1/101 39.P3e-3d 34/228 0/101 40.B3cx8h+ 0/228 16/117 41.S7ix8h 0/228 0/117 42.R8e-4e 0/228 1/118 43.B*5f 31/259 0/118 44.R4e-5e 0/259 11/129 45.S2f-3g 1/260 0/129 46.N7c-6e 0/260 18/147 47.S3g-4f 7/267 0/147 48.B*8d 0/267 2/149 49.P*7e 8/275 0/149 50.B8dx7e 0/275 10/159 51.P*7c! 0/275 0/159 It is hard to say where white went wrong, but here black takes over the position. It is very hard to defend against the promotion of the pawn. Tanigawa thought he had seen this and that the following variation was not so bad for white. A mistake in judgement: black gets the better position. 52.R5ex5f 0/275 24/183 53.P5gx5f 3/278 0/183 54.B*9e 0/278 0/183 55.K6h-7i 1/279 0/183 56.B9ex7c 0/279 0/183 57.P3d-3c+? 0/279 0/183 Too eager. It was better to defend by closing the bishop diagonal with 57.P5e first. White then has nothing else but to defend against the same variation as in the game with 58.P*2c. After that, black can safely attack with 59.R*8a followed by P*7b. 58.N2ax3c 0/279 0/183 59.R*2a 1/280 0/183 60.P*3a 0/280 3/186 61.P5f-5e? 13/293 0/186 If you are playing well, the timing for switching between attack and defence is good. Goda shows in this game that he is not in good form. Before, he attacked where he should have defended. Here, he defends where he should have attacked. It seems he still could have won this game had he played 61.Rx2b+ Gx2b Rx2b+ Bx4f Px4f N5g= G6h Nx4i+ S*6a! and it seems there is no way to get to the black king. 62.P*2c 0/293 0/186 63.P*3d 0/293 0/186 64.N3c-4e 0/293 2/188 65.P3d-3c+ 1/294 0/188 66.S2bx3c 0/294 0/188 67.R2ax1a+ 0/294 0/188 68.B7e-5g+ 0/294 1/189 69.S4fx5g 2/296 0/189 70.N4ex5g+ 0/296 0/189 71.L*3f 0/296 0/189 72.B7cx5e 0/296 3/192 73.B*3g 0/296 0/192 74.B5ex8h+ 0/296 28/220 75.K7ix8h 2/298 0/220 76.S*7g 0/298 0/220 77.K8h-9h 0/298 0/220 77.Nx7g fails to 78.S*7i, but this just prolongs the agony. There is no way that Tanigawa will make a mistake from a position like this. 78.S7gx7h+ 0/298 0/220 79.R2hx7h 0/298 0/220 80.P7f-7g+ 0/298 0/220 81.N8ix7g 0/298 0/220 82.P*8h 0/298 0/220 83.P9g-9f 0/298 0/220 84.N6ex7g+ 0/298 0/220 85.B*2a 0/298 0/220 86.G*2b 0/298 4/224 87.L3fx3c+ 1/299 0/224 88.G2bx2a 0/299 0/224 89.+R1ax2a 0/299 0/224 90.S*8i 0/299 0/224 Resigns 0/299 0/224 Time: 04:59:00 03:44:00 With this win, Tanigawa takes a 2-0 lead to get within one win of taking Goda's Kisei title. There seems to be no way Goda can get back into this match. This second game might even be worse for Goda than the first one. He had chances to win, but two consecutive mistakes showed that he is nowhere near the level of shogi he is capable of. Winning three games in a row against such a strong opponent seems very unlikely. In other shogi news: ==================== 1) The second big Tanigawa news is his win in the challenger game for the Oi title. After a perfect 5-0 to win his challenger group, he beat Yashiki, who emerged as the winner of a four-way play-off in the other challenger group. It was a tough game that could have gone either way, but in the end Yashiki missed only one opportunity where he turned to defence where a bad looking attacking move would have been the right way to continue. After this Yashiki in byoyomi tried everything to make it hard for Tanigawa, pulling back all his pieces in defence. However, Tanigawa had enough time left to find the right way to mate Yashiki's king. 2) In the A-class Morishita played Kato in the first round. Strangely, there was no professional in the press room following this game. Maybe everyone expected Morishita to win this game easily. In the end he did, but he needed all his defensive skills to withstand Kato's attack. For Kato this loss is bad news, since he is playing Tanigawa and Maruyama next. For Morishita this means that he might have another go at the Meijin title this year. His next game against Habu will show how far he can go. 3) In B1 the second round was played last week. There was a big win for Inoue against Minami, who is another favourite for promotion to the A class this year. Minami got too fixated on a king manoeuvre that was very good the first time, but not the second time. With 2-0 Inoue has a very good start to get back to the A-class in one year after his unlucky relegation last year. Also on 2-0 are Senzaki (beat Kamiya) and veterans Mori and Kiriyama. 4) B2 started with the first round. There was only one surprise: Nakagawa lost against Urano. All other promotion favourites won, even though Ryu-O Fujii needed a big mistake by Ono in the endgame after Fujii overplayed a good position. In B2, promotion already is looking like a race between Fujii, Abe, Miura and Fukaura. 5) C1 also started last week. Here there were a couple of more surprises. Yashiki lost again in the first round, this time to Kansaki. In a tough class like C1, this probably means that he has to win all the other games to promote. It might help him a little that the players that came up from C2 will probably not be a threat this year. Only Namekata (who did not play in the first round) did not lose; Katsumata and Kimura both lost their first game in C2. Sato Shuji, another favourite for promotion also lost, against Shoshi. 6) The qualifications for the challenger knock-out for the Ryu-O are almost finished. With Maruyama beating Nakamura for a spot in the finals, only the game between Tanigawa and Takahashi is left. Other finalists are Moriuchi (winner group 1), Sato Yasumitsu (second place group 1), Goda (winner group 2), Suzuki Daisuke (second place group 2), Inoue (winner group 3), Hatakeyama Mamoru (second place group 3), Kubo (winner group 4), Kinoshita (winner group 5) and Sato Shinya (winner group 6). An interesting line-up with of course Habu as most notable absentee. 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