From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 29 jun 2000 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 846, June 28th 2000) No title match games in Shukan Shogi this week (next week we will have both a Meijin game and a Kisei game), but plenty of other important games. The most important of these was probably the Oi challenger game between Tanigawa and Yashiki. The same players also played for the right to challenge Habu last year and the game even had the same opening: Ibisha versus Shikenbisha. However, this time the colours were reversed and Yashiki was playing with the black pieces. It was a very slow built-up as both players built a strong castle with four generals (Yashiki had an Anaguma, Tanigawa a Silver Crown). The fighting did not start until well in the evening, when Yashiki decided that his castle was stronger and that it was time for some action. For a while the game was very close, but Yashiki made the first mistake in defending with a natural gold retreat where he should have played an attacking move first. Tanigawa showed his great form by winning the game after only one Yashiki mistake, ending the game with a nice bishop sacrifice that Yashiki could not accept. So, for the second year in a row Yashiki fails one game before the finish line and for the second year in a row the great rivals Tanigawa and Habu will meet in the Oi title match. Maruyama and Moriuchi played for spot in the semifinals of the Oza tournament. It was a very old fashioned Kakugawari game with a variation that was very popular about 40 years ago. Maruyama seemed to know his way in this variation best as he got a solid advantage. However, things looked very tight when suddenly Maruyama found a brilliant way to develop his pieces with a consecutive bishop exchange that Moriuchi could not avoid. A great win by Maruyama who will now play Tanigawa next. The other semifinal is also very strong as Sato Yasumitsu plays Fujii. In the A class Junisen one game of the first round was played. The game between Tanaka and Kato might have already been very significant as both players are expected to fight relegation this year. Therefore, things might be very sour for Tanaka, who had a big advantage after the opening and seemed to get an easy win. However, 60-year old Kato showed some of his famous fighting spirit to make things as hard as possible for Tanaka and with success. A late mistake by Tanaka in a position that had already become quite hard to win due to earlier inaccuracies proved fatal and Kato won. Kato is now by far the oldest player in the A-class as Aono is the second oldest player at 47, but he has taken a big step in keeping his spot next year. In B2 the complete first round was played. There was already a big upset as promotion favourite Fukaura lost to Tomioka. Tomioka played very well and the position was unclear for most of the game. However, a big mistake in defence cost Fukaura the game as he overlooked a mating threat by his opponent. All other favourites won with Suzuki Daisuke beating Tosa in a tough endgame and Kubo beating Ariyoshi with some nice defence. Biggest win of the round was probably for Nakagawa, who beat promotion rival Abe from a bad position. This might already be a very important win, as Nakagawa does not seem to have a tough schedule until the 9th round, when he will play Suzuki. Still a long way to go, of course. In C2 also the first round was played. C2 is a survival race with 44 players fighting for only three promotion spots. For the first round, Shukan Shogi focuses on the four rookies. 18-year Akutsu has had a bad start of his professional career with losses against amateurs and women and he had a tough first round opponent in Iizuka, who was in the promotion race until the very end last year. Surprisingly, Akutsu won with some brave attacking play and this might be a second start for him. After all, he is still very young. Even younger is Watanabe, who just turned 16 and is considered the next big thing in shogi. He started his professional career completely different as he won his first six games. He now has a 7-1 career score and his debut in the Junisen was watched with great anticipation. He was playing Tachi, who was not at all in the mood to freely hand the point to the young genius. Watanabe seemed to have the edge and he himself thought he was winning easily, but with some clever defending Tachi seemed to be able to get an entering king. However, that was the point where Watanabe showed that he is the real thing, as a brilliant silver sacrifice followed by the sacrifice of two promoted rooks drew the Tachi king back towards its own camp where it became easy prey to Watanabe's generals. It was the last game to finish at almost one o'clock in the morning, but there were still a lot of players there who had stayed to watch the end and see the post-mortem analysis. The other two rookies in C2 did not fare that well. Anyoji lost to "Rookie Killer" Ito No, who last year beat Kanezawa and this year stopped Watanabe's winning streak. Iijima loss was even worse, as he was beaten easily by veteran Mori Nobuo, definitely not the strongest player in C2. In the Ryu-O tournament there are only two open places in the challenger finals left. Both will be filled by players from the second chance round in the 1st classification group. The game between Sato and Goda in the second chance round was for one of these vacant spots. Sato won, ending the game with a sacrifice of a rook for a silver, which gave him the time he needed to built a devastating double tokin attack. So Sato advances to the challenger finals as well and the final spot will be for the winner of the game between Moriuchi and Tanigawa. Meanwhile, Nakahara showed that he is still a player to be reckoned with, as he won the first qualification group with a win over Habu in the final (both players of course qualify for the challenger finals). I do not think Habu lost this game on purpose, but there is a jinx in the Ryu-O tournament that the winner of the top qualification group will not be the next Ryu-O challenger. Habu might have increased his chances for a Ryu-O title with this loss against Nakahara (^_^). Shimizu took back the Ladies Osho title that she lost to her pupil Ishibashi last year. It was a bit of a disappointing finish, as Shimizu won the fourth game without much of a fight. She had an advantage after the opening and this advantage grew steadily and in the end Ishibashi had to resign in only 85 moves. With this victory Shimizu got her fifth Ladies Osho title, also gaining the honorary title of Queen Osho (the ladies' equivalent of the "Eisei" or "Lifetime" honorary titles in the men's tournaments). Shimizu has now got a Queen's title in all four major Ladies titles, making clear again that she is the true star of women's professional shogi. The young stars (with Ishibashi as their front runner) need a little more work to get near Shimizu. 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)298-61-3316 Fax: +81-(0)298-61-5918