From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 24 aug 2000 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 854, August 23rd 2000) No title match game last week, but some important other games were played. First of all, Habu and Tanigawa met again, this time they played in the challenger tournament of the Ryu-O. A big game, as the winner would play a best-of-three match with Sato Yasumitsu to decide the challenger of Ryu-O Fujii. The R8e Yokofudori game was very complicated and both players did not have faith in their position, even though in the press room the opinion was that Tanigawa was slightly better. However, Tanigawa had decided to play the position calmly and that might have not been the best strategy, as Habu managed to take the initiative. Tanigawa attacked strongly, and seemed to have good chances when he won a bishop. Habu used the time to take this bishop for strengthening his attack and this turned out to be decisive, even though he needed another Tanigawa mistake to convert his advantage into a win. So Sato will meet Habu in the challenger match. Habu should be considered the favourite, considering that he has a 38-17 score against Sato, but one can never tell in a short best-of-three match, where the first game is so important. The first game will be played on August 24th. In B1 the fourth round was played. After three rounds, Miura was the only undefeated player and he extended this perfect record with a quick win over Nakamura. The question then was who would be able to stay close to keep up the pressure. The biggest game of the round was the game between Goda and Ryu-O Fujii. Both players had 2-1 scores and needed to win to stay close to the lead. Goda met Fujii's Shikenbisha with a slow build up, taking the time to make a Silver Crown castle. The game looked to end in sennichite for a while, but Goda did not want to give up the advantage of playing black and opened the game. This might not have been wise, as it was Fujii who benefited most and won the game with some fine defensive endgame play. Fujii was joined in second place by Inoue and Fukuzaki. Inoue showed that he understands the subtleties of the R8e Yokofudori better than Kamiya, who completely misjudged the strength of his own attack (much weaker than he thought) and the attack of Inoue (much stronger than he thought). Fukuzaki's win over Nakahara can be called an upset, but Shukan Shogi does not spend a single sentence on this game. So, relegation from the A class seems to have a large psychological impact, as both Goda at 2-2 and Nakahara at 1-2 have a bad start in their effort to get back to the top class in one year. The situation is not hopeless, as there are 12 rounds to play in B1, but they have a lot of work to do to catch up with the leaders. In B2 the third round was played and the situation about promotion to B1 is already very unclear. Promotion favourite number 1 Fukaura lost his second game against Suzuki Daisuke and is already in big trouble. After three rounds, Hatakeyama Nariyuki, Tsukada, Azuma and Kubo kept their perfect record. Former A class player Tsukada might finally put an end to his free fall down the Junisen ranks (he is only 35) and both Hatakeyama (31) and Kubo (24) are strong players, but the name of Azuma among the leaders is a complete surprise. 45-year old Azuma is playing to get rid of his relegation marker and only needs three wins from the remaining seven games to do so. However, while he is at it, he might as well go for promotion! Still a long way to go and his next game against co-leader Tsukada might tell us more. Anyway, the leaders can not take it easy as they are followed by Abe, Nakagawa, Izumi, Kitahama, Tanaka Kaishu and Suzuki Daisuke. Except perhaps for Tanaka, all seem strong enough to play a role in the promotion race. Last week a small piece of shogi history was being made. Ouchi had the dubious honour of becoming the first 9-dan beaten by an amateur in a regular tournament game. Yamada Atsumoto, the Asahi amateur meijin, beat Ouchi in the second round of the 19th Zen Nihon Pro tournament, after he had already beaten Nakao in the first round. Ouchi looked to be in control for most of the game, but a hidden combination that was missed by both Ouchi and the players in the press room forced Ouchi to change his plans where he thought he could win easily with a bishop sacrifice. Yamada had seen it all and was very cool in the endgame, deciding the game by building a rock hard defence. This is typical for strong amateur play, as the time limits in amateur tournaments do not allow for carefully reading out all the variations to a win, as professionals are used to do. In some cases this will give the opponent a chance to get back in the game, but not in this case. Yamada will now face an even tougher challenge in the third round, as he will meet Yashiki next. More next week, Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Complex Games Lab Electrotechnical Laboratory 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken, 305-8568 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp URL: http://www.etl.go.jp/etl/suiron/~grimberg/ Tel: +81-(0)298-61-3316 Fax: +81-(0)298-61-5918