From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 26 oct 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 812, October 27th 1999) This week Shukan Shogi opens with the second game in the Shinjin-O match between Fujii and Horiguchi. Rather than a good fight, this game became a learning experience for Horiguchi. Fujii showed that his shogi is at a completely different level than that of his opponent. First, he won the psychological battle, since Horiguchi had prepared an opening to make a very strong defence but with minimal chances of attack. With some subtle middle game play Fujii slowly took away Horiguchi's options. Horiguchi decided to go for an all-out attack by giving a rook for a bishop, but this was the wrong decision. Oyama-like defence by Fujii killed all of Horiguchi's hope of an attack and in the end Horiguchi took 28 minutes to admit that even with his four general castle intact he was completely defeated. This victory gave Fujii his third Shinjin-O title, tieing the record with Moriyasu and Moriuchi. Being 8-dan and holding a major title is a first for the Shinjin-O, though. Quickly finishing this match without too much effort will greatly help him in the defence of his Ryu-O title. In the A class of the Junisen Morishita and Shima played a game in the fourth round. Going into the game, Shima was 2-1 and Morishita was 1-2, so for both players the game was very important. For Shima to keep his chances of a first Meijin challenge alive, while for Morishita the game was important to stay out of relegation trouble. It was a difficult game, where there seemed to be no bad moves by either player. Morishita won and the reason for this was a slight mistake in the development of pieces in the early middle game by Shima. Tough luck if a minor slip up like that turns out to be the difference between winning and losing. In B1 round 6 was played last week. Inoue, Kiriyama and Senzaki were the leaders after round five with only one loss. Surprisingly, it was Inoue who dropped out of the lead, losing to Mori. Even more surprisingly, both Aono and Kamiya, who were following the leaders with 3-2 scores, also lost (Aono threw away a winning position against Takahashi and Kamiya lost to Naito). This means that Senzaki and Kiriyama suddenly only have Inoue as a promotion rival. Especially for 52-year old Kiriyama this seems a golden opportunity to make a sensational come-back to the top class. At the moment the battle for avoiding relegation seems more interesting than the promotion race. Last place is shared by 5 players who all have a 2-4 score: Kobayashi, Takahashi, Nakamura, Fukuzaki and Naito. This means that even a 3-3 score means continuing worries about relegation. In B2 the battle for promotion has suddenly gotten very tight after both undefeated leaders Abe and Urano lost (against Tomioka and Tamaru respectively). As a result, there are now 8 players with one loss. Currently Miura is leading this group, since he has played an extra game, but his low rank in the class (just promoted from C1) means that he does not have his chances in his own hands. Fujii and Abe have the best prospects, but also some tough opponents left to play, including their mutual game in round 8. This one is very hard to predict, but I think Fujii, Miura and Fukaura are the strongest of the eight candidates. In C2 also the sixth round was played. Only Horiguchi was allowed to play his game a week later, since he was busy in the Shinjin-O tournament. In C2 the number of players is large and usually only 10-0 or 9-1 is a score good enough for promotion. After round six there are only nine players left who have a chance of getting this score. Undefeated are Sugimoto, Iizuka and Horiguchi. Of the leaders after round 5, only Yamazaki lost. He played against Ito No, a game he was controlling from the start, but where a nasty endgame oversight cost him dearly. Yamazaki thus joined Kobayashi (who showed terrific endgame skills in beating Kubota), Nozuki, Kondo, Ono and Matsuo. It is very likely that the three promotions will come from these players. In the Osho league three games were played. For some players this was the first game, while for others it was the second one. Nakahara and Goda both played their first game and it looked like an easy win for Nakahara until the very end. Goda admitted that he already gave up on the game when Nakahara made a big blunder in the late endgame. A lucky win for Goda and that might just be what he needs to get out of the slump he is in this season. Meijin Sato was the one who stopped Maruyama's winning streak and therefore it was no surprise that he played exactly the same opening in their Osho league game. Sato again won easily, finding a hole in Maruyama's opening preparation. The meijin now has won his first two games and may well be on his way to another Osho title challenge. The third game in the Osho league surprisingly has no comments from Shukan Shogi. A victory of young Kubo over Tanigawa looks like something worth reporting on. For Tanigawa this is his second loss and he has almost no chance anymore to become the challenger this year. Shizimu defended her Ladies Oi title by beating Usui in the fourth game, ending the match 3-1. It was a high level game where Usui lost because she ran out of time to calculate a good defence in a complicated position and chose the wrong (attacking) plan. It was the first time that Usui had no less than 4 hours total time for a game and she was not able to find a good balance between short and long thought. Shimizu's experience in playing the men in official pro tournaments might have made the difference in this game. For fans of Kato Hifumi I have some good news: he finally managed to win an official tournament game again. Like he was in brilliant form he decided his game with Kushida in the preliminaries of the Oi in only 68 moves. This game ended a 21 game losing streak, dating back to October 22nd 1998. With only four days to spare, Kato managed to avoid being a full year without winning a game. 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