From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 14 sep 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no.803-805, August 25th, I am back from a nice little vacation in Europe. Unfortunately I was not able to play the European Championships, but lying on the beach of a small Greek island with my wife was a reasonable substitute (^-^). Of course I missed all the professional action in Shukan Shogi in the past weeks, so time to get up to date. First, the Oi match between Habu and Tanigawa. Unlucky Tanigawa also lost the fourth game after getting a really good looking middle game position. However, Habu seems to be back in Terminator-mode after a bad start of the season and crowned a flawless defence with his fourth straight victory and his 7th Oi title. Here is the game with comments: Black: Habu Yoshiharu, Oi White: Tanigawa Koji, Challenger 40th Oi-sen, Game 4, August 17th and 18th 1999 1.P7g-7f 2/2 0/0 2.P3c-3d 0/2 4/4 3.P6g-6f 2/4 0/4 With 3-0 down and the white pieces, everyone in the press room was discussing what strategy Tanigawa would pick. All other games thus far were played with the fashionable Yokofudori opening and most votes went to this opening again. However, this 3rd move surprised everyone, including Tanigawa. Habu very rarely plays the Furibisha with black. 4.R8b-3b 0/4 17/21 Tanigawa takes 17 minutes to recover and decide what to do. He probably wanted to play Furibisha to begin with, so he plays it anyway. Now the game becomes a Ai-Furibisha game. Double Ranging Rook was a very rare opening about 15 years ago, but recently there are many strong young players who only play Furibisha, so the Ai-Furibisha is not so uncommon anymore. However, Habu and Tanigawa have played 95 games together and this is their first game with this opening. Habu seems to have psyched out his opponent: "I was aiming for Ai-Furibisha". 5.S7i-6h 11/15 0/21 6.P3d-3e 0/15 9/30 7.S6h-6g 11/26 0/30 8.K5a-6b 0/26 3/33 9.B8h-7g 7/33 0/33 10.K6b-7b 0/33 7/40 11.R2h-8h 4/37 0/40 12.P3e-3f 0/37 13/53 13.P3gx3f 11/48 0/53 14.R3bx3f 0/48 0/53 15.S3i-2h 6/54 0/53 16.P1c-1d 0/54 3/56 17.P1g-1f 16/70 0/56 18.G4a-5b 0/70 14/70 19.K5i-4h 12/82 0/70 20.S3a-4b 0/82 17/87 21.G6i-5h 6/88 0/87 22.S4b-3c 0/88 38/125 23.P6f-6e 35/123 0/125 24.S3c-4d 0/123 3/128 25.P8g-8f 18/141 0/128 26.R3f-3d 0/141 19/147 27.P*3g 8/149 0/147 28.N2a-3c 0/149 46/193 29.P8f-8e 18/167 0/193 30.S4d-3e 0/167 2/195 Despite being better prepared for the opening than Tanigawa, Habu has not managed to get any advantage. On the contrary, with 30.S3e, Tanigawa has managed to build an attacking formation without allowing Habu a pawn in hand. Tanigawa was quite happy with his position here. 31.K4h-3h 1/168 0/195 32.G6a-6b 0/168 20/215 33.G4i-4h 20/188 0/215 34.S7a-8b 0/188 11/226 35.P7f-7e 51/239 0/226 36.P9c-9d 0/239 17/243 37.P9g-9f 13/252 0/243 38.P2c-2d 0/252 31/274 39.S6g-5f 23/275 0/274 40.P2d-2e 0/275 49/323 41.R8h-8f 16/291 0/323 Painfully making clear black's opening failure. The normal way for this rook to end up on 8f is after the exchange P8d Px8d Rx8d P*8c R8f. Tanigawa has not allowed this, so Habu has to play the rook to 8f without gaining a pawn in hand. 42.B2b-1c 0/291 14/337 43.S5f-5e 44/335 0/337 Black will have considered the violent 43.P1e Px1e Lx1e P*1d Lx1d Rx1d Bx3c+, but after B2d +B2c R1h+ the difference between both attacking silvers is too big and white has the advantage. 44.B1c-2d 0/335 23/360 45.R8f-7f 41/376 0/360 46.P5c-5d 0/376 28/388 47.S5e-4f 1/377 0/388 No choice. After 47.S6f, white easily improves his position by P2f Px2f Sx2f and he gets another free pawn in hand. Habu decided to play aggressively and see if he can weather the storm. 48.S3ex4f 0/377 17/405 49.P4gx4f 0/377 0/405 50.R3d-3e 0/377 0/405 51.R7f-6f 22/399 0/405 52.P4c-4d 0/399 2/407 53.G4h-4g 6/405 0/407 54.P4d-4e? 0/405 2/409 A very natural move, but a mistake. In the postmortem it was concluded that 54.S*5e R8f P4e P3f R3d S*3e Px4f was better for white after both 1) Gx4f Sx4f Rx4f G*4e and 2) Sx3d Px4g+ Gx4g P*4f G4h G*4g. These variations are not easy, but it seems that white has better winning chances than in the game. 55.P3g-3f 4/409 0/409 56.R3e-3d 0/409 0/409 57.S*3e 6/415 0/409 58.B2dx3e 0/415 2/411 59.P3fx3e 0/415 0/411 60.R3dx3e 0/415 0/411 61.S2h-3g 0/415 0/411 62.S*5e 0/415 3/414 White's position looks very good here, but in reality it is very difficult to continue his attack. 63.R6f-8f 3/418 0/414 64.P4ex4f 0/418 23/437 65.G4g-3f 2/420 0/437 66.R3e-3d 0/420 0/437 67.B*2c 2/422 0/437 68.R3d-4d 0/422 0/437 69.S3gx4f 2/424 0/437 70.P2e-2f 0/424 5/442 71.P2gx2f 6/430 0/442 72.P*3e 0/430 0/442 73.G3f-3g 8/438 0/442 74.P*2h 0/438 2/444 75.S4fx3e 19/457 0/444 76.R4d-4b 0/457 8/452 77.P*4c 2/459 0/452 78.G5bx4c 0/459 0/452 79.K3hx2h 0/459 0/452 80.P*3d 0/459 0/452 81.P*4d 1/460 0/452 82.P3dx3e 0/460 2/454 83.P4dx4c+ 0/460 0/454 84.R4bx4c 0/460 0/454 85.P*4d! 0/460 0/454 With 85.P*4g black could safe himself a pawn, keeping one in hand. However, this fails to 86.N4e with attack on gold and bishop. 86.R4cx4d 0/460 0/454 87.P*4g 0/460 0/454 88.P*4f? 0/460 7/461 The losing move. Habu feared 88.S*6f Rx6f (Bx6f Sx6f Rx6f P*2g is bad after both Gx2g B*5e and Kx2g B*4i) Sx6f Bx6f S*3i K3i R*6i S*4i Rx6f+ and P3f next is very strong. 89.P4gx4f 2/462 0/461 90.S*3f 0/462 2/463 91.G3gx3f 1/463 0/463 92.P3ex3f 0/463 0/463 93.S*3e 0/463 0/463 Attacking the rook and defending 4f. This kills white's attack and now black easily wins in the counter attack. 94.R4d-4b 0/463 2/465 95.B2c-3d+ 1/464 0/465 96.S*6f 0/464 2/467 97.R8fx6f 2/466 0/467 98.S5ex6f 0/466 5/472 99.B7gx6f 0/466 0/472 100.R*6i 0/466 0/472 101.B6fx3c+ 2/468 0/472 102.R6ix2i+ 0/468 1/473 103.K2hx2i 0/468 0/473 104.P3f-3g+ 0/468 0/473 105.S*6a 0/468 0/473 Resigns 0/468 0/473 Time: 07:48:00 07:53:00 Mate after both K7a G*7b and Gx6a N*6d Px6d G*6c Kx6c R*5c Kx5c +Bx4b Kx4b R*4c. A surprisingly one-sided match with Habu getting his 7th Oi title in straight games. Considering that Tanigawa came into the match in brilliant form with a fresh Kisei title under his belt, it is amazing that Habu (who had not won a game all season) had such an easy time. Habu again shows his remarkable capacity of playing well when the pressure is the highest. The quality of a true champion. Habu also had a good start in the Oza match against Maruyama. The aura of invincibility Maruyama had a couple of weeks ago seems to have gone and in this first game things were back to normal. That is, Maruyama losing against Habu. In 14 games Maruyama has beaten Habu only 3 times, and this time it was pretty one-sided. Here is how it went: Black: Habu, Oza White: Maruyama, Challenger 47th Oza-sen, Game 1, September 3rd 1999 1.P7g-7f 0/0 0/0 2.P3c-3d 0/0 0/0 3.P2g-2f 1/1 0/0 4.P8c-8d 0/1 0/0 5.P2f-2e 1/2 0/0 6.P8d-8e 0/2 0/0 7.G6i-7h 1/3 0/0 8.G4a-3b 0/3 0/0 9.P2e-2d 2/5 0/0 10.P2cx2d 0/5 1/1 11.R2hx2d 0/5 0/1 12.P8e-8f 0/5 0/1 13.P8gx8f 0/5 0/1 14.R8bx8f 0/5 0/1 15.R2dx3d 1/6 0/1 16.B2b-3c 0/6 0/1 17.R3d-3f 2/8 0/1 18.S3a-2b 0/8 0/1 19.P*8g 1/9 0/1 20.R8f-8e 0/9 0/1 There it is again. The R8e Yokofudori variation. 21.R3f-2f 0/9 0/1 22.K5a-4a 0/9 1/2 23.K5i-6h 1/10 0/2 24.S7a-6b 0/10 0/2 25.P3g-3f 2/12 0/2 26.G6a-5a 0/12 1/3 27.S3i-3h 1/13 0/3 28.P7c-7d 0/13 1/4 29.P3f-3e 2/15 0/4 30.N8a-7c 0/15 1/5 31.B8hx3c+ 7/22 0/5 32.N2ax3c 0/22 0/5 33.P3e-3d 1/23 0/5 34.N3c-4e 0/23 0/5 35.P3d-3c+ 2/25 0/5 36.N4ex5g+ 0/25 2/7 37.K6hx5g 0/25 0/7 38.B*3e 0/25 3/10 39.K5g-5h 1/26 0/10 40.B3ex2f 0/26 1/11 41.+P3cx3b 1/27 0/11 42.K4ax3b 0/27 0/11 43.B*6f 0/27 0/11 44.B2f-4d 0/27 3/14 45.B6fx4d 23/50 0/14 The variation played in this game is a good example of how violent this opening can get. Both players show that there opening preparation is good. Three days before this game, exactly the same variation was played in the game between Abe and Nakahara in the pre-rounds of the Osho tournaments. There, Abe played the aggressive 45.N*2d K3c Bx4d Px4d G*3b K2d Gx2b K3c Gx1a. This was not good enough, since Nakahara strongly countered with N6e and won in 89 moves. Habu's way of playing is a definite improvement. 46.P4cx4d 0/50 0/14 47.S7i-6h! 0/50 0/14 This is the real Habu idea. Since the black attack is not decisive, he takes the time to strengthen his own position. With the white king in an awkward position and the black position without many holes, it is good psychology to leave the initiative to Maruyama. 48.P*3f? 0/50 127/141 After long thought, Maruyama plays a bad move that probably already decides the game. Maruyama will have spent most of the time on the natural 48.P*2h. Habu said after the game that he had looked both at this move and 48.R2e. 48.R2h does not seem to be very good for white after 49.B*3d R2h+ G*4c K2a P*5b G6a G4b B*5d N*4f B6e P6f and if the white bishop leaves the 9h-2a diagonal, B4c+ is decisive. Therefore, 48.P*2h seems to be the right move. Then 49.N3g P*3f B*2e B*5d N7g R3e N*2g (Habu thought he could play G*4f here, but realised after the game that white would win with Px3g+) R5e P*5f Rx5f S5g Rx5g+ Kx5g P3g+ P*5e N*6e is better for white. In a position like this a single variation is not enough for a definite conclusion and it is hard to judge who actually has the better chances here. Still, Maruyama should have chosen this over the bad 48.P*3f. It is a pity that Maruyama has the habit of keeping very silent during the post-mortem analysis, so there was no information about his reasons for playing P*3f instead of P*2h. 49.G*3d! 39/89 0/141 Aims at the simple N*2d K4b B*2a. This is hard to defend against. 50.B*6a 0/89 37/178 A defence only move that shows white failed strategy. 51.G3dx4d 70/159 0/178 52.P*2h 0/159 10/188 53.P*2c 42/201 0/188 54.S2b-3c 0/201 39/227 Painful, but no choice. After 54.Sx2c B*3c or 54.Kx2c N7g R3e (R2e B*1f) S5g followed by S4f black has an overwhelming position. 55.G4dx3c 14/215 0/227 56.K3bx3c 0/215 0/227 57.B*2b 0/215 0/227 58.K3c-4b 0/215 1/228 59.B2bx1a+ 4/219 0/228 60.B6a-2e 0/219 0/228 61.P*3d! 13/232 0/228 The winning move. 62.Bx3d S*4d is an easy win for black, so Maruyama tries a desperate attack which Habu effortlessly holds off. 62.P*4f 0/232 65/293 63.L*8f 26/258 0/293 64.R8e-4e 0/258 0/293 65.+B1a-3c 15/273 0/293 66.K4b-5b 0/273 0/293 67.N*4d 0/273 0/293 68.K5b-6a 0/273 0/293 69.L8f-8c+ 1/274 0/293 70.R*5d 0/274 0/293 71.K5h-6i 0/274 0/293 72.R5dx4d 0/274 0/293 73.P4gx4f 7/281 0/293 74.P3f-3g+ 0/281 0/293 75.K6i-7i 0/281 0/293 76.R4ex4f 0/281 0/293 77.N2ix3g 1/282 0/293 78.R4fx4i+ 0/282 1/294 79.S3hx4i 0/282 0/294 80.R4dx4i+ 0/282 0/294 81.P*5i 0/282 0/294 82.G*6i 0/282 3/297 At first glance, white's position looks like there is still something to play for. However, the horse on 3c is too powerful in defence for white to be really threatening. 82.G*6i is actually showing that Maruyama has given up all hope and just wants to make the position look a little closer than it actually was. 83.K7i-8h 0/282 0/297 84.G6ix6h 0/282 0/297 85.G7hx6h 3/285 0/297 86.S*7i 0/285 0/297 87.K8hx7i 2/287 0/297 88.+R4ix5i 0/287 0/297 89.S*6i 0/287 0/297 90.B2ex6i+ 0/287 0/297 91.G6hx6i 0/287 0/297 92.S*6h 0/287 0/297 93.K7i-8h 0/287 0/297 94.S*7i 0/287 0/297 95.K8h-9h 0/287 0/297 96.G*8h 0/287 0/297 97.+B3cx8h 0/287 0/297 98.S7ix8h+ 0/287 0/297 99.K9hx8h 0/287 0/297 100.B*5e 0/287 0/297 101.S*6f 4/291 0/297 102.+R5i-4h 0/291 0/297 103.B*4c 0/291 0/297 Resigns 0/291 0/297 Time: 04:51:00 04:57:00 There is no immediate mate, but after +Rx4c Gx6h +R4h G*5h there is nothing left to play for. So, Maruyama does not get his first win in his first title match appearance. Furthermore, his score against Habu drops to an abysmal 3-11. Will he be able to shake off his Habu complex in game 2? In other shogi news: ==================== 1) In the A-class long time rivals Moriuchi and Goda finally met in the top class of the Junisen. Both started the Shoreikai at the same time, but when turning professional Goda seemed to give priority to winning titles, while Moriuchi preferred a fast pace to the A class in the Junisen (I doubt that there was much freedom of choice, though). It was Moriuchi who controlled the game and even though for a moment it looked if Goda might enter, Moriuchi drove the king back and won. Moriuchi stays in the race for challenging Meijin Sato (he is now 1-1), but Goda falls back to 0-2 and has to worry about dropping straight back to B1. In the final game of round 2 Tanigawa beat Kato, who seems to be this year's number one relegation candidate. We have been talking about winning streaks lately, but Kato's losing streak is quite amazing too. He has not won a tournament game since October last year when he beat Morishita in the Junisen. 17 consecutive losses must have him wondering if he will ever win again... With the win against Kato, Tanigawa is now also back to 1-1 and is back in the race for his third straight Meijin match. In B1 both leaders Inoue and Kiriyama lost their fourth round game against Kamiya and Kobayashi respectively. Therefore B1 is again an open race between (at the moment) four players. Senzaki scored a nice win over Nakamura with a brilliant bishop sacrifice, while Kamiya's win over Inoue will not go down into history as the best shogi game ever played, but did give him a share of the lead. Big problems this year for Takahashi, who lost his fourth game in a row and is now in serious relegation trouble. B2 has an uneven number of players this year, which makes the promotion race a little difficult to judge in the early stages. Ryu-O Fujii did not make a mistake in his third game and now has a 3-0 score. Surprisingly, he is joined by Urano, whose Junisen last year was a complete failure (I think he only won one game). At 35, he is still young and he has B1 experience, so this might have been a fluke caused by external circumstances. Looking at his opponents, only Abe in round 7 seems to be a real problem, so Urano might actually have a good chance this year. Fukaura and Abe are close by though. They are also without defeat, but from two games. Abe made his intentions clear by beating former Kisei Miura. In C1 also round 3 was played. Here also an uneven number of players, so there are 7 undefeated players: 5 players with a 3-0 score and two players with a 2-0 score. Not surprisingly, one of the leaders is Suzuki, who does not seem to be distracted by his brilliant run in the Ryu-O tournament. Suzuki had to work hard for the win though. Okazaki did not convert a winning position in the point he desperately needs. Okazaki is now 0-3 and in serious dangerous of relegation to the C2 hell he just escaped from two years ago. Other leaders are Kubo, Hatakeyama Mamoru, Shoshi and 58-old veteran Sakurai, who all have three wins. Kubo had to fight especially hard for his. His first game with Nakata Hiroki ended in sennichite at 19:07 after 62 moves, the replay also ended in sennichite at 1:51 after 145 moves and Kubo finally won the second replay at 4:55 in the morning in 92 moves. A 19 hour battle for a single point! The five leaders are followed by Namekata and Kobayashi with 2-0. Namekata beat former Kisei Yashiki, who suffered his third straight loss and must start wondering how he will ever get out of C1. For the moment he does not have to worry about leaving through the back door, since C1 requires two bad results to go down. In C2 the third round was played and some more players dropped out of the promotion race. There are still plenty left, since 7 players still have a perfect 3-0 score: Sugimoto, Izuka, Yamazaki, Horiguchi, Kobayashi, Nozuki and Matsuo. All are strong and capable of continuing the winning streak for the remaining 7 games. Only rookie Matsuo seems to be a little out of his depth in the first year with games with long thinking time. Clearly the most talented of this year's new 4-dan, he will probably make a good score this year and make his move next year from a better Junisen position. At 19 he still has all the time in the world. I think Sugimoto will definitely make it this year and the other two positions are up in the air. Actually, Yagura also still has a good chance to join this group, since he now has a 2-0 score. 2) In the best-of-three challenger match for the Ryu-O title between Maruyama and Suzuki, both players shared the first two games. The first game ended in sennichite after 73 moves, and the replay was then surprisingly won by Suzuki. It was a very difficult game where Maruyama made a mistake in the middle game that was very hard to judge. In the end it could only be seen as a model performance by the new young star. He still has a mountain to climb, though, since Maruyama struck back in the second game. Suzuki seemed to outplay himself in the middle game, since he sacrificied a rook for two minor pieces and then found out to his surprise that Maruyama could use the rook very strongly in attack. For the third year in a row, the final game has to decide the Ryu-O challenger. 3) In the Kio challenger tournament, Meijin Sato ended Maruyama's 18 game winning streak in their best sixteen round game. It was a game which showed the deep opening preparation of both players. Sato's position looked suspect to many, but he had all looked at it before and showed that the position evaluation of a Meijin is still something else. Sato was joined by Shima (who beat Nakamura), Goda (who beat Nakagawa), Inoue (who beat Minami), Tanigawa (who beat Kobayashi Kenji), Sato Shuji (surprising win over Morishita) and Fujii (win over Tamaru). All top class players and Habu is already certain to face a strong challenger. The last quarterfinalist will be the winner of the game between Moriuchi and Tanaka Torahiko. Later this week I will get back on track with a report on the latest Shukan Shogi, 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