From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 8 dec 2000 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 869, December 6th 2000) No title match game last week, so this week's Shukan Shogi report is going to be quite short, as there were not too many other important games either. Of course there are always some Junisen games. The most important one was the game between Tanigawa and Moriuchi in the A class. This was the first game of the sixth round and both players still had a good chance to challenge Meijin Maruyama. Especially Tanigawa had recovered well from a loss in the first round against Habu, winning all four of the games after that. On the other hand, Moriuchi had started with three wins, but followed that with two losses. The loss in the previous round against Kato was especially painful. Dropping another one would end all hopes of challenging for the Meijin title for the second time. The game was a Yokufudori opening that resulted in a very difficult middle game. There Tanigawa showed that he understood the position best, as Moriuchi picked the wrong plan twice and that was all Tanigawa needed. So Moriuchi drops out of the challenger race, which now seems to be between Tanigawa and Sato, with Habu having an outside chance. It is interesting that Tanigawa and Sato will meet in the final round. Will this be the deciding game? In B1 round 9 was played. There, the promotion race is between Goda (6-2), Miura (6-2), Minami (5-2) and Fujii (5-2). Goda had the round off, so he could watch from the sidelines how his rivals would do. The most interesting game was between Fujii and Nakamura. Nakamura had won only two games so far, so he needed the victory just as much as Fujii. Nakamura played the early stage of the game very well and got an advantage against opening specialist Fujii. However, Fujii made it really hard for him and in the endgame things got very complicated with both players missing good opportunities to win the game. In the end it seemed that Fujii would win (he thought so himself), but Nakamura managed to confuse him with some stubborn defending. Fujii made a mistake in the attack and lost. This is almost the end of Fujii's chances for joining shogi's elite in the A class next year. Miura is still very much in the race as he beat Inoue in a hard fought game that ended at 1:43 in the morning and 176 moves. Even though players have six hours in a Junisen game, this was not enough for Inoue to win. In the middle game he found all the right answers, but it took him so much time that Miura managed to convert a losing position into a winning one when Inoue got into time trouble. No word in Shukan Shogi on the game between Minami and Kamiya, which was won by Minami. So, after 9 rounds Miura is the only player with 7 wins, but since Goda and Minami also have only two losses, Miura does not even have his chances in his own hands. He needs a mistake by one of his rivals and must win all three of his remaining games. He might have to rely on Fujii to beat Minami in the final round or Nakahara to beat Goda in the next round. These two games seem to be the most difficult hurdles. The Kisei leagues have started. This year the system is changed slightly as there is no all-play-all in the four leagues of four players. Instead, the system used in most national amateur tournaments has been adopted. If a player wins two games in a row, he qualifies for the final eight. If a player loses two games in a row, he is out. The players in each league with one win and one loss play for the right to qualify for the final eight. The first two games of the Kisei leagues already had a slightly surprising result. In the B group Nakagawa beat Namekata, while in the C group Suzuki Daisuke beat Goda. The Osho league is not so interesting anymore, as Tanigawa has already won the league and will challenge Habu (losing his final game last week against Maruyama made no difference). However, there is still the fight for relegation going on. Kubo showed his great talent by beating both Sato and Goda in one week, giving him a chance to stay in the Osho league next year. He now "only" needs to beat Morishita in the final round. Other players with a chance are Maruyama (3-2 after starting with 2 losses), Nakahara (3-2) and Sato (2-3 after starting with two wins). 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