From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 11 jan 2002 Subject: These weeks in Shukan Shogi (no. 921-924, I have been back to Holland for two weeks during Christmas and New Year and extremely busy around that period, so again had no time for Shukan Shogi reports. Fortunately, Habu's early shutout in the Ryu-O match made sure that there was no title match during that period (the Osho match is next and starts on January 16th). Here is an update on the recent professional results: * A class Junisen, round 6: Moriuchi-Senzaki 1-0, Habu-Tanigawa 1-0, Kato-Sato 0-1 (round 5), Morishita-Kato 1-0, Aono-Fujii 1-0 (!), Sato-Miura 1-0. Moriuchi keeps pretending that this is an easy class with push-over opponents as he wins his 6th straight game. Sato follows with 5-1. Tanigawa's chances to challenge again have gotten a lot smaller after a loss against Habu. He now has 4-2, just like Morishita, who won his fourth straight game and even has an outside chance to become challenger. Habu at 3-3 can relax a little as he is the only player free of challenger or relegation stress. Aono's win over Fujii might prove to be huge, as he now is on 2-4 and in a relatively good Junisen position. Only one more win is needed secures his place in next year's top class and probably his best chance to get it is in his next game against Kato (also at 2-4). Fujii still has a lot of relegation troubles at 2-4, but things are looking really bleak for Senzaki and Miura, who only have a single win. Miura still has all his relegation rivals to play (Senzaki, Aono and Kato), but more or less needs to win them all to be sure to stay in the league. * B1 Junisen, round 10: Shima-Kubo 0-1, Tanaka-Goda 1-0, Takahashi-Nakamura 1-0, Minami-Kiriyama 0-1, Nakahara-Fukuzaki 0-1, Inoue-Kamiya 0-1. No promotion for Shima yet as Kubo takes his final chance to make it three promotions in three years. Shima still has every chance to return to the top division at 9-1, but he has to play Goda and Takahashi next, which is not the easiest way to finish. Both still have chances to promote themselves. Goda surprisingly lost to Tanaka and is now 8-2 and Takahashi won his fifth straight to get to 6-3. Kubo is still between these two with 7-2. Kubo must win his three remaining games and hope that Shima beats Goda. He is still alive, but I expect Goda and Shima to stay out of reach. * B2 Junisen, round 7: Fukaura-Tsukada 1-0, Nakagawa-Izumi 0-1, Tomioka-Suzuki 0-1, Kitahama-Sato Shuji 1-0, Tosa-Tamaru 1-0, Namekata-Ono 1-0. Fukaura just keeps on winning and is now 7-0. Nakagawa suffered a painful loss to drop to 6-1. He is still alright at 6-1, but feels Suzuki Daisuke breeding down his neck at 5-2. With games against Fukaura and Namekata still to play, Nakagawa's promotion is suddenly far from certain. Other players on 5-2 are Kitahama, Tosa and Namekata. Who will accompany Fukaura to B1? * C1 Junisen, round 8: Kimura-Ouchi 1-0, Kobayashi (5-dan)-Sanada 0-1, Hatakeyama Mamoru-Katsumata 1-0, Kanzaki-Kogura 0-1, Yashiki-Shoshi 1-0, Nozuki-Nakata Isao 1-0. Kimura leads with 7-0 and seems to be heading straight for promotion to B2. He is followed by Hatakeyama, Sanada and Ogura with 6-1. This means that Kimura can afford to drop one game from the final three and still promote. Both Sanada and Ogura are ranked lower than him in the class. Yashiki crawled back into contention after a bad 1-2 start and now is 6-2. Still, he is very much an outsider for promotion. * C2 Junisen, round 7: Toyokawa-Hashimoto 1-0, Sasaki-Matsuo 0-1, Noda-Tamura 0-1, Takano-Takeichi 1-0, Naganuma-Chiba 0-1, Yamamoto-Kinoshita 0-1, Yamazaki-Ono 0-1, Ito No-Iijima 0-1. Toyokawa and Matsuo keep winning and are now 6-0. Toyokawa can afford to lose one game now, as Naganuma dropped back to 5-2. There are now only two players with 6-1: Tamura and Takano. Tamura was very lucky to win and suddenly finds himself in a promotion spot. Players still in with a chance at 5-2 are Naganuma, Yamamoto, Yagura, Sato Shinya, Akutsu, Yamazaki, Ito No and Nakao. * Osho league, round 7: Nakahara-Moriuchi (round 6) 0-1, Tanigawa-Nakahara 1-0, Goda-Kubo 1-0, Moriuchi-Sato 0-1. Sato wins the Osho league with a perfect score of 6-0, which is quite amazing considering the strength of this year's league. He vowed to do better than two years ago when he lost to Habu 4-0. Kubo, Goda and Tanigawa stayed in the league. Especially Tanigawa was very lucky to survive with a 2-4 score. * Kio challenger tournament: Sato beats Moriuchi to win the winner's section. Moriuchi loses to Goda in the second chance round. Goda now has to beat Sato twice in a row to become challenger of Kio Habu. Sato needs only one win to become challenger. Goda started well by winning the first game to make it all even. The final game between these two decides the challenger of Habu. * Kisei leagues, round 1: Group A: Habu-Okazaki 1-0, Maruyama-Sugimoto 1-0 Group B: Fukaura-Yonenaga 1-0, Kimura-Kubo 1-0 Group C: Tanigawa-Nakahara 1-0, Yashiki-Namekata 1-0 Group D: Hatakeyama Nariyuki-Suzuki Daisuke 1-0 From each group the player with two consecutive wins qualifies directly for the finals. The players with one win and one loss play a game to decide the other four finalists. More next week (maybe ;-) ), 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