From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 4 jan 2001 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 872, People waiting for some detailed comments on the final game of the Ryu-O match between Fujii and Habu will have to be a little more patient, as the Shukan Shogi with this game is going to be next week's issue. The Christmas issue of Shukan Shogi is a double number for two weeks, and so is my Shukan Shogi report. Shukan Shogi opens with the 10 biggest news items in the shogi world in 2000: 1) Habu is five crown title holder again, winning his 10th Kio title, his 9th Oza title, his 8th Oi title, his 5th Osho title and 6th Kisei title after a four year gap. 2) Maruyama becomes the 11th tournament system Meijin after a long battle with Sato Yasumitsu that went down to the decisive 7th game. 3) The amateurs had a field day against the professionals last year. Amateur Yamada beat Nakao, Ouchi and Yashiki in the Zen Nihon Pro tournament, while amateur Segawa beat no less than 7 professionals in a row in the Ginga-sen, a television quick play tournament. 4) Naito became the fifth player after Oyama, Kato, Nakahara and Yonenaga to win 1000 games as a professional. 5) Nakahara drops out of the A class Junisen after 30 years at the top, either as Meijin or in the A class. 6) Tanigawa and Habu met for the 100th time in the first game of the Kisei match. It only took them 14 years to get to that number, which is a new record. Habu won, making it 60-40 in his favour. 7) Watanabe Akira became the fourth youngest player to make it to the professional ranks. At 15, he joins Kato, Tanigawa and Habu who also made it at such a tender age. Judging from the company, he will at least make it to Meijin. 8) Shimizu took ladies Osho to get three of the four major women's titles again. It was her fifth Osho title, meaning she is now "Queen Osho" (the ladies equivalent of the "Lifetime" titles that the men get for winning five titles). This also means that Shimizu is now "Queen" in all of the four major women's titles. 9) Nakai is the mother of three children, so the general opinion was that it would be very hard for her to perform at the top level, but she managed to win the Ladies Meijin title by beating Shimizu in straight games 10) Furibisha is the winning opening strategy these days. No less than four Furibisha specialists promoted in the Junisen last year. Fujii to B1, Suzuki Daisuke and Kubo to B2 and Sugimoto to C1. Furthermore, Fujii challenged Habu for the Oza title and defended his Ryu-O title, outplaying Habu in the opening almost every game. Of course there was also some real action: ========================================== * In the A class the final game of the sixth round between Kato and Aono was played. A big game, as both players were 2-3 going into the game. The difference between winning and losing would be the difference between relative safety and deep relegation trouble. Aono played a great game, showing that his promotion to the top class is not a fluke. Excellent attack speed judgement followed by some deadly finishing gave him his third win in a row and a 3-3 score that gives him every chance to extend his stay in the A class. Still, it is a little early to breathe easily, as he still has to play Habu, Tanigawa and Moriuchi in the final three rounds. Kato now joins Tanaka, Shima and Senzaki at the bottom of the standings. The next two rounds, where he meets Senzaki and Shima will be decisive. * In B1 round 11 was played and Takahashi did Miura a big favour by beating Minami. For Takahashi this was the fifth win in a row, which means he suddenly has a minuscule chance to make a come-back to the top class with a 6-4 score. However, this is not very likely with Miura extending his record to 8-2 with a win over Fukuzaki. Second is Goda, who beat Nakahara to get to 7-2. These two have their promotion chances in their own hands and I doubt that Minami or Fujii (both at 6-3) will get a chance to pass them. * In B2 Junisen the seventh round was played and here things seem to be quite clear. There are only five players left with a chance to promote. Tsukada seems to be almost there, as he won again to extend his winning streak to 7-0. He is in great from this season with an overall winning record close to 70%, so it seems unlikely that he will make a mistake. He needs only two wins from the final three games and with veterans Ariyoshi and Tamura as two of his three final opponents, Tsukada is almost certain to make a return to B1. At the moment Kubo has the best chances to accompany Tsukada. He beat Tamura to become the only player with only one loss and thus has his chances in his own hand. As Kubo just promoted to B2, his Junisen position is very bad, so he can not afford another defeat with Abe, Nakagawa and Suzuki Daisuke following him with 5-2 records. Still, Kubo will not meet any of his rivals in the final three games, so I do not think he will be overtaken by any of them. * In C2 Junisen the seventh round was played and the promotion race now becomes really tight, as dropping a game can make a huge difference. Most attention was focussed on the game between undefeated Yamamoto and Nozuki, who had lost only one game. The game turned out to be a little disappointing as Yamamoto could not find the right way to develop his pieces and was blown away quickly after that. With Yamamoto's loss, there is no longer a player without a loss in C2 and Nozuki takes over the lead. Yamamoto was also passed by Chuza, who scored a quick win over Matsuura and Kobayashi Hiroshi, who surprised Kosaka with a strange looking rook sacrifice. As Kobayashi took a long time to play it, it looked like he thought of the sacrifice behind the board. However, after the game he said that he had played this move before in an internet game. The times, they are a-changing... * The final Habu-Tanigawa encounter of the 20th century was played in the Zen Nihon Pro tournament. Tanigawa really loves this tournament, winning it 7 times and being runner-up twice in the 18 times it has been held. This special relationship continues as he scored a convincing win over his most important rival. He is now only one win away from another appearance in the final. * Fukaura beat Nakahara in group C of the Kisei leagues to get within one win of making the challenger finals. Yonenaga did the same by beating Awaji in group D. 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