From: "'Marc Theeuwen'" AMSINC COM> Date: 5 sep 2000 Subject: MSO 2000 format --0__=4fJCbh85WplqzjXywKL70sb6AoEWsCMn1WcFFukHzfttogXpJbQcPlLr Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Time limits: In order to keep a game score, it is my personal experience that you need at least 45 minutes per person. Under the time pressure of byoyomi, I would not like to spend the time to write down and check the moves, even not with 60s. As I think that it is good both for the individual players themselves, as for a wider shogi community to keep game scores, I would strongly suggest to maintain at least 45 minutes per game. As for more than 30s byoyomi, I would like to express my fatigue after 5 days of shogi at the MSO (even though I did not play myself the first day as tournament leader of the team match) and therefore would welcome a 'lighter' programme where more time off is available. With 60s of byoyomi that is not possible with the current number of rounds, which leads me to the second point: Number of rounds: The 9 rounds of shogi were chosen in order to allow the European Championship and the MSOWSC to be combined. In order for 1) the European Championship not to be influenced by players from outside Europe and 2) to maximize the possible exposure of players to players they would normally not meet, we chose a 5-round knock-out format for the European players within the European Championship, which leaves 4 rounds for the strongest Europeans to possibly meet players from outside Europe. If you want to maintain both goals, I do not see room for less rounds or play-offs. English Joseki: In addition to what Chiaki Ito said about josekis, I would like to mention an alternative. At the tournament in New York, I got a CD-ROM with shogi lessons by Mr. Yonenaga. They cover all kinds of topics, like building castles, breaking them down, attacking techniques and the use and advanced use of pawns. It is highly interactive with lots of tests and has an option to give English spoken and written explanations. It reminded me strongly of the "Better moves for better shogi" book by Mr. Aono, which in my opinion is the best shogi book I have ever read. Regards, Marc Theeuwen Chiaki Ito MAIL COM> on 09/05/2000 06:42:27 AM Please respond to The Shogi Discussion List TECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL> To: SHOGI-L TECHUNIX TECHNION AC IL cc: (bcc: Marc Theeuwen/AMS/AMSINC) Subject: MSO 2000 Dear Sekai no Shogi Kishi san, It was truly grateful to see many of you at the MSO 2000. I would really like to express my appreciation to many of you and the organizers, in particular, Pieter Stouten and Hans Secelle who dedicated such valuable efforts to the wonderful tournaments, It surely was a worth travelling half the way around the world from Thailand to London! This was one of the most well-organized, well-managed, and memorable tournaments I have ever attended in my Shogi life! Here are my comments and suggestion regarding the details of the MSO. I partially agree with Larry on the time control. My suggestion is 30 minutes and 60 seconds byouyomi or 45 or 60 minutes kiremake, instead. I think 60 seconds byouyomi is often reasonable for most players. In fact, many pros say, "if you dont come up with a good move within 60 seconds, you will not even if you take 10 minutes." This may not be true in some cases, especially in the complex middle game or long mating endgame. However, it is true that most of the moves people make are out of those which they come up within a few seconds the opponent moves. For this reason, 60 seconds byouyomi is justified as not too short or not too long. About the tournament format, I really liked the Swiss system. In Japan, I have hardly played a tournament like this format before and felt so bad whenever I kicked out of the tournament at an earlier round. I concentrated and enjoyed each game I played throughout the tournament because I know that each and every game counts towards my ranking. However, I thought for the MSO championship that 9 rounds may be a bit long because the winner can be decided at earlier round. In addition, I strongly suggest that the players get to play play-offs to decide the rank because the total number of wins of your opponent does not tell very much the difference between the players with the same scores. So my suggestion is to reduce the number of rounds and give more time for play-offs. Another suggestion is that I noticed that there are many players around 1 dan level, so it may be good to offer hands-on lessons by pros or advanced players targeting especially for those. It is hard to generalize all players around that level into one type, but from my observation of games at the MSO (which I really enjoyed!), I noticed that many of them do not know proper jyouseki. In fact, when I get to play with them, I tend to take a great advantage easily before the middle game just because of the knowledge of jyouseki. From my teaching experience, I feel that many of them have great potential to improve to 3 or 4 dan players if they get good instruction in jyouseki and some advanced advice in endgame. It will take years to learn jyosekis if they read from books. This is especially true for many because there are not many "good" English or foreign language jyoseki books available. If taught on the board in an interactive way, it is much easy and fast to learn! By this, I really hope that many of them reach 3 dan or 4 dan level because then they could enjoy playing even with the 5 dan or 6 dan competitive players in tournaments. Lastly, in the past I have earned trophies by winning tournaments, but this is the first time for me to earn medals and I really loved them! If any of you come to Thailand, please email me or give me a call. I am glad to take you around the city and, of course, give you a good Shogi training for you to be a 5 dan player! Best, Chiaki Ito PS. If any of you have any picture you have taken with your camera which I am in, would you please email or mail it to me? I was so excited about my games and about taking photos of other players that I have not taken a photo of myself! 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