From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 1 feb 2001 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 876, January 31st 2001) Not much news in Shukan Shogi this week as there was not title match game last week and there was almost no Junisen action as well. The only two games of real importance were the A class Junisen games between Tanigawa and Morishita and between Habu and Aono. Against Tanigawa Morishita did something he almost never does: he played Furibisha. If even Morishita starts ranging the rook, one should seriously wonder if this is actually the winning strategy in shogi... In any case, Morishita must have studied this deeply, thinking he found a weakness in Tanigawa's play against the Mukaibisha (Opposing Rook). If he did find something, he did not get the chance to show it in this game, as Tanigawa played the middle game better, showing that Morishita's knight attack was a failure. Morishita managed to safe the knight, but in return had to give Tanigawa a strong attack. If Tanigawa is in good form this is deadly and recently Tanigawa has been in good form. With some lightning speed attacking he finished the game to keep the lead in the A class with 6-1. Morishita drops to 3-4 and even though this means he is a some danger to drop to B1, his good Junisen position will probably be enough to save him, even if he loses both of his two remaining games. Habu has not yet given up hope for another Meijin title and had to win against Aono to join Sato in second place at 5-2. Aono also still had a small chance to challenge Maruyama, but at 3-3 his first concern was to safe his place in the A class for next year. A win would have sufficed, and for a while it looked like Habu was in trouble. However, Aono did not want to give up the second bishop he had won and this gave Habu a very strong attack. Even after that, Aono had a chance to complicate things by going for an entering king, but he missed that opportunity after which he lost quickly. With the game between Sato and Tanigawa in the final round, Habu has every chance to at least reach a play-off. Of course, he can not afford to lose another game and in the next round he has to play Moriuchi, who is the only player in the top class without any pressure with a 4-3 score. Sato Yasumitsu reached the semi-finals of the Zen Nihon Pro tournament with a win over Tsukada. Sato won straight from the opening (a reversed R8e Yokofudori) and showed some good judgement in leaving a knight alone, going for trapping the rook instead with some subtle play. Tsukada could only escape with the rook by putting it in a very awkward position and Sato won convincingly after that. Sato has not had great results in this tournament in the past, but he is now only one game away from the best-of-five finals. Fukaura is the first player to qualify for the challenger tournament of the Kisei-sen. He beat Suzuki Daisuke in the winner's game of Kisei league D. Suzuki still has a chance to qualify for the final eight, but he needs to win against one of the other players with one win and one loss. In the ladies Meijin, titleholder Nakai levelled the match by winning the second game against challenger Saita. Nakai had the early lead, but an overplay made things very complicated and in byoyomi things could have gone either way. Nakai showed her endgame skills under pressure with a fine king escape that just gave her enough breathing room to win. This match is now a best-of-three match, so winning the next game is very big. That game will be played on February 4th. 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