From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 21 sep 2001 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 909, September 19th 2001) No title match game in Shukan Shogi this week, but a lot of Junisen action. In the A class the most important game was the encounter between Tanigawa and Fujii. Both players had started well with two wins and this game would be about who would stay at the top of the table. Surprisingly, the game was a one-sided affair. Tanigawa used a strange strategy against the Fujii system, moving his king first to 8h to threaten to make an anaguma and then back to 6i when Fujii threatened a strong attack. Interestingly, this all worked out perfectly well for Tanigawa. He got the better position and Fujii never managed to get back in the game. The game was already over at 10:30 in the evening, which is quite quick for a Junisen game. Fujii was clearly disappointed with his performance, as the post mortem analysis only lasted for about 30 minutes. Tanigawa set a big step towards a return match with Maruyama. Tanigawa probably won't have to deal with Habu anymore. Habu lost without much of a chance against Moriuchi for his second loss in three games. The first game ended in sennichite, but the replay was won quite easily by Moriuchi, who found a strong new move in a well-known joseki. Things were already bad for Habu when he overlooked a vulgar but strong move that couldn't be defended. Moriuchi also has three wins and the A class might be a race between him and Tanigawa, just like last year. Still, there is also Sato Yasumitsu, who also won his third straight game with a victory against Aono. An interesting point in this game was that the record keeper was not a Shoreikai member as all Shoreikai players were on their yearly trip. Instead, future A class prospect Watanabe was doing the record keeping and the other stuff that record keepers do like pouring tea for the players. Despite the respect that Watanabe has already earned, he must have felt that the A class was still far away. In the game Aono seemed to have a good opening, but Sato showed that he had judged it better. Aono did everything to stay in the game and just when he thought that things had gotten interesting again, Sato again showed that he had seen more. Aono started well with a win over Morishita, but with losses against Habu and Sato, his position in the A class is far from safe. In the next round he will play relegation rival Senzaki, which will be a big game for both players. In B1 two delayed games were played. There was a big surprise here as Kisei Goda lost his first game against Nakahara. Nakahara was 0-3 going into this game and had won only 3 games of the 20 encounters with Goda. However, this day was different, as Goda let a good middle game position slip away and Nakahara showed that there is still a lot of good play left in him. In the second game, Kubo had a fine win over Takahashi, joining Goda at 4-1. Kubo now has his promotion chances in his own hands again after the unfortunate loss in the first round against Kiriyama. However, the next game will be very important as Goda and Kubo will play next. The winner will have a great chance to play in the top class next year. In C1 the 4th round was played and it already looks like Kimura will run away from the field. He won his fourth game in convincing style against Kodama and his main rivals Sugimoto and Sanada lost against Nozuki and Hatakeyama respectively. With his stellar play this season and relatively easy opponents in the rest of his games (except maybe Hatakeyama) it seems that the question will be who will join him in B2 next year. There are still 12 players with only one loss who all are in with a chance. Horiguchi Kazushiza, Sugimoto and Nozuki seem to be the most likely candidates. In the Kio challenger tournament, the last two quarterfinalists were decided. Goda beat Yamasaki and Fujii beat Fukaura to reach the final eight. The four quarterfinal games are Goda-Morishita, Kimura-Moriuchi, Sato-Iizuka and Fujii-Kubo. Especially the games between Kimura and Moriuchi (both in great form at the moment) and between Fujii and Kubo look very interesting. Kimura reached the final of the Shinjin-O tournament with a win over Masuda. Considering Kimura's record this season this is no surprise, but the game went Masuda's way for a long time. Kimura had no good moves to play and interestingly enough that helped him. Masuda played a waiting move to see if Kimura would play a gold back that he had just moved up. However, this waiting move turned out to be the weakness that Kimura needed to start a fight. When he manages to get into a fight that is not too bad for him, he seems to have no equal. Kimura reached the final of the Shinjin-O for the first time and will now play Matsuo in a best of three match for the title. We have two new professionals. Miyata Atsushi and Murata Tomohiro got first and second place in the 29th 3-dan league of the Shoreikai to promote to 4-dan. Convincing promotions as Miyata ended with a 15-3 score and Murata with 14-4. This was three and two points clear of number three. Both Miyata and Murata are 20 years old. Miyata is a pupil of Shiyoshi (6-dan) and Murata is a pupil of Awaji (9-dan). More next week, Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Department of Information Science Saga University 1 Honjo-machi, Saga-shi, 840-8502 Japan E-mail: grimbergen fu is saga-u ac jp URL: http://www.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp/~grimberg/ Tel: +81-(0)952-28-8821 Fax: +81-(0)952-28-8650