From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 13 oct 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 810, October 13th 1999) Maruyama must be slowly getting desperate. He is beating everyone easily, but has so much trouble when he faces Habu. The Oza match looked like a very exciting encounter between a brilliant player (Habu) and a player in brilliant form (Maruyama). However, after game 4 the match is suddenly over. Habu won in 70 moves after being in trouble early in the game again. Typically Maruyama has no problems converting better positions, but playing against Habu seems to bring out the worst in him. The R8e Yokofudori again made a quick victim after Maruyama played only one weak move. Here is the game with comments: Black: Maruyama, Challenger White: Habu, Oza 47th Oza-sen, Game 4, October 8th 1999 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 1/3 5.P2f-2e 0/0 0/3 6.P8d-8e 0/0 1/4 7.G6i-7h 1/1 0/4 8.G4a-3b 0/1 1/5 9.P2e-2d 0/1 0/5 10.P2cx2d 0/1 1/6 11.R2hx2d 0/1 0/6 12.P8e-8f 0/1 3/9 13.P8gx8f 0/1 0/9 14.R8bx8f 0/1 0/9 15.R2dx3d 0/1 0/9 16.B2b-3c 0/1 2/11 17.R3d-3f 5/6 0/11 18.S3a-2b 0/6 5/16 19.P*8g 4/10 0/16 20.R8f-8e 0/10 2/18 The third time this is played in this match. The difference is that Habu is white this time. Playing the R8e Yokofudori with white against Maruyama, who is considered the biggest expert in this opening, shows confidence and perhaps even a little bluff. 21.R3f-2f 0/10 0/18 22.K5a-4a 0/10 5/23 23.K5i-5h 8/18 0/23 24.S7a-6b 0/18 3/26 25.S3i-3h 6/24 0/26 26.G6a-5a 0/24 9/35 27.P3g-3f 1/25 0/35 28.P7c-7d 0/25 35/70 29.S3h-3g 66/91 0/70 30.P5c-5d 0/91 35/105 31.S3g-4f 4/95 0/105 32.P7d-7e 0/95 7/112 33.B8hx3c+ 3/98 0/112 34.N2ax3c 0/98 0/112 35.P3f-3e 0/98 0/112 36.P7ex7f 0/98 2/114 37.S7i-6h! 0/98 0/114 A simple move, but very strong. This strengthens both 7g and 5g and takes away white's attacking possibilities. Too aggressive would have been 37.P3d because of 38.R2e. 38.P*2e 0/98 99/213 Definitely a move white does not want to play, so it is no wonder Habu spent so much time on it (99 minutes out of a total of 5 hours). P*2e block square 2e for the white rook, so P3d becomes a serious problem. The move white wants to play is 38.N7c, but after P7d N6e P7c+ Sx7c B*9f black gets a big advantage. Another move is 38.P*2d, threatening to play 40.S2c next, but after the strong 39.Rx2d P*2e (threatens to win the rook) P3d! it is black who gets the upper hand. 39.R2f-2h 42/140 0/213 40.P*3f 0/140 10/223 41.G4i-3h 6/146 0/223 Simple but strong. White still has problems to find something useful to do. 42.N8a-7c 0/146 1/224 43.P*7g? 41/187 0/224 This move is also in Maruyama style, as it is trying to take away white's options. However, in this case it does not work and suddenly white is able to break free. The correct way to continue is 43.B*6f, threatening 45.P3d N4e P*2c. If white answers B*6f for example with 44.B*4d, then 45.Bx4d Px4d P3d N4e P*2c Gx2c (Sx2c P3c+ Gx3c B*2b) B*4c S5c B2a+ and the threat P*2d is a big problem. It seems white can only defend against this with B*2d after which the black advantage is clear. 44.N7c-6e 0/187 6/230 45.P7gx7f 2/189 0/230 46.N3c-4e 0/189 1/231 47.R2hx2e 10/199 0/231 48.P*8f 0/199 19/250 49.B*9f 0/199 0/250 The only move. After 49.Px8f Rx8f P*8g Rx7f P*7g Rx4f Px4f P3g+ Nx3g B*3f black loses the rook on 2e. 50.P8fx8g+ 0/199 0/250 51.G7hx8g 0/199 0/250 52.N6ex5g+ 0/199 1/251 53.S6hx5g 1/200 0/251 54.N4ex5g+ 0/200 0/251 55.S4fx5g 2/202 0/251 56.R8e-5e 0/202 4/255 57.P*5f 0/202 0/255 58.R5e-4e 0/202 0/255 59.N*7e 3/205 0/255 60.P*8e 0/205 3/258 61.B9fx8e 0/205 0/258 62.K4a-3a 0/205 0/258 63.B8e-7d 4/209 0/258 64.B*7h! 0/209 10/268 Good move. Neither N*3d nor N*2d is a mating threat, so white wins with S*6i after either of these moves. 65.S5g-4f 2/211 0/268 Or 65.G8h S*6i K6h Rx7e Gx7h (Px7e N*7f forks king and gold) Sx7h+ Kx7h Rx7d and black has no more hope of a decent attack. 66.P*2d 0/211 1/269 67.S4fx4e?! 26/237 0/269 Quickens the end. However, after 67.R2g Rx7e Px7e Bx8g+ white also wins. 68.P2dx2e 0/237 0/269 69.N7ex6c= 0/237 0/269 Nx5a+ next is a mating threat, so it looks like black still has some play... 70.R*6i! 0/237 4/273 Resigns 8/245 0/273 Time: 04:05:00 04:33:00 Maruyama took 8 minutes to realise that this move ends the game immediately. The white threat is Bx6g+ and mate. There is no good defence against this. For example, 71.G7g fails to the hisshi 72.S*6h. The post-mortem analysis seemed to indicate that after 43.P*7g Maruyama never really had a chance to win anymore. A little disappointing end to what looked like a very interesting match for three games. In the end Habu won all three games with the R8e Yokofudori. As this was supposed to be Maruyama's strong point, the match result should not be too surprising. Still, Maruyama had the better play after the opening in all games, and it is surprising that he was not able to convert this advantage in three of the games. Habu seems to be indeed a very difficult opponent for Maruyama. Of course he is not alone in that. For Habu this is his 8th consecutive Oza title, extending his own record. He is still only halfway Nakahara's total of 16 Oza titles, though... In other shogi news: ==================== 1) In the A-class Maruyama pushed Kato deeper in the hole he is in by winning from a very bad position. Lots of strange things happened in this game, but Kato must have angered the shogi gods very much, since he again was unable to convert the chances given to him. Maruyama has now three wins from three games and seems to be heading straight to challenging Sato this year. On the other hand, Kato has now three losses and relegation seems to be very hard to avoid with his abysmal form this season. Goda is also struggling in the A-class this year. A 1-2 start is not as expected. The same can be said for his opponent Tanigawa, who also started badly at 1-2. The loser of this game would definitely be out of the challenger race. Surprisingly Tanigawa scored a very easy victory. Straight from the opening he won in only 75 moves. Goda now must start worrying about dropping straight back to B1 again. 2) In C1 an intermediate round was played to account for the uneven number of players. Kobayashi had a scare against Murooka after he seemed to be cruising to victory early on. He overlooked a very nasty checking sequence which Murooka thought lead to mate. In the end there were many complex variations and only one difficult way out of the mating net. Kobayashi managed to find this escape and extended his winning streak to four games, joining leaders Suzuki and Kubo. They are followed by newly promoted Kimura, who beat Maeda and is now 4-1. 3) In the Shinjin-O it seems like Ryu-O Fujii is taking his last chance to win this title (that would be his third). In the first game of this best-of-three minimatch he showed Horiguchi that his playing level is a little different from most. A simple overplay was enough for Fujii to get a solid advantage, and even though Horiguchi tried everything to turn things around, in the end it was no use. A perfect display of endgame technique should give Fujii confidence for the Ryu-O match which starts tomorrow. 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