From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 26 mar 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 781, March 24th 1999) This week in Shukan Shogi the unofficial final game of the 1998-1999 professional season: the play-off for deciding the challenger of the Meijin. Of course, the professional season never really stops, but the time between Junisen classes is used by most professionals to relax and take a small holiday. Was Tanigawa able to bounce back from his disappointing loss in the final A Junisen game against Shima. Missing a mate in the endgame with time on the clock left, must have given him some sleepless moments. However, Tanigawa has remarkable psychological strength. He seems to play his best shogi after major disappointments, for example winning eight games in a row after being crushed 4-0 in the Ryu-O match last year. For a long time that did not seem very likely in the play off game against Moriuchi. Moriuchi dominated the game and seemed on his way to his second Meijin challenge. Tanigawa fought back, desperately trying to confuse the position and finally Moriuchi stumbled. Tanigawa needed only one chance to turn the tables, getting a rematch with Meijin Sato. In doing so, Tanigawa also weakened the jinx on the top position in the A Junisen class. It was 20 years ago when Oyama was the last player to lose a Meijin match and challenge again the next year. The first game will be played on April 8th and 9th. In the Oi tournament almost all games of the second round were played in both the Red and the White group. In the Red group Meijin Sato lost his second consecutive game, virtually losing his chance for a rematch with Oi Habu. The game against Namekata was very similar to their last encounter with Sato making a mistake in the attack and Namekata winning in the counter. Leading the Red Group are Shima, who has been in great form recently, and Tanigawa. Shima beat Abe in a game that followed the second Kio game for a long time. Abe played a new move he had prepared and Shima found himself in a bad position. However, Abe made a mistake in opening the game and Shima won. Tanigawa beat Sugimoto in what was strangely enough their first encounter, even though both players play in the Kansai area. Sugimoto lost his way in his own subtle play in the middle game and Tanigawa won. In the White group another titleholder with two losses after two rounds. Yagura (4-dan) beat Ryu-O Fujii for his second win and Fujii's second loss. Yashiki joined Yagura in the lead by beating Kitajima. Here also, the winner had to get out of a bad position to clinch the victory. The Zen Nihon Pro Tournament match might be very interesting now Maruyama beat Okazaki to appear in his first major final. Okazaki did not prove much of challenge, making a mistake very early in the game and losing quickly and without a chance after that. Maruyama will play Moriuchi, who has some experience in this tournament, winning it ten years ago and losing to Habu in last year's match. A repeat for Moriuchi or a first tournament victory in a tournament open to all professionals for Maruyama? The Zen Nihon Pro Tournament match starts next week, on April 1st. Finally, some comments by five promoted players. Goda (promoted to the A class) sounds very confident, saying that he kind of expected to take a little less time to get to the top class. Asked about his two losses in round 6 and 7, he said that they helped him focus better and improved his level of play. Tanaka Torahiko is much more happy about his promotion, finally needing the help of Fukuzaki to get out of B1. Despite being a little fortunate, he has set himself a high goal as well. He did not manage a majority of wins in the three times he played in the A-class. This is a tough task in a class of champions. Namekata (promoted from C2) cleared the lowest class in his fifth attempt, which seemed very long for a player of his caliber. He himself thinks so too, with the pressure of needing to win almost all games in a class so full of young talent something he needed time to get accustomed to. Like most players, he sees C1 as one of the most difficult Junisen classes, so he says he only wants to improve the level of his play. Katsumata seems to be the one surprised most by his own promotion. In his first two years as a professional he was not able to do very well with 4-6 and 4-6 scores. Last year he turned this around with a fine 7-3 record, but missing out on promotion by losing the final two games must have been a disappointment. However, this year he was fighting for promotion from the start, even though he almost blew it in the final game against Oshima. When he realised he was going to win, he left the playing room to wash his face and regain his composure for the final couple of moves. He is the only player admitting that he will worry more about relegation than promotion next year. Kimura, the third player promoting from C2, does not know how tough Junisen life can be. He cleared the class in only his second year as a pro and says that he is happy with the result, but that he was much more happy when he promoted to 4-dan. He is having a great year with a winning percentage of 71% and doing well in all tournaments. At 25, he is not considered to be the great young star to challenge Habu, but his performance this season show that he might become a very strong player indeed. 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