From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 18 jul 2002 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 951, July 17th 2002) No title match games in this week's Shukan Shogi, but as it is very unlikely that I will be able to write a report in the next two weeks (an exam period followed by a conference in Canada), here is the shogi news from Shukan Shogi before it gets too old: * In the A class Junisen, Miura and Goda played their second round encounter. Both Miura and Goda had won their first game, so this was important for taking the early lead in the race to challenge Meijin Moriuchi. It was a tough game that needed to be replayed after a sennichite (happens a lot to Miura) and ended at 2:12 in the morning with Miura as the winner. Goda missed a nice move in a difficult middle game after the Yokofudori opening and this was all Miura needed, finishing the game with a nice rook sacrifice to give his attack decisive strength. * The Ryu-O challenger finals started with the game between Matsuo (winner of the 5th preliminary group) and Miyata (winner of the 6th preliminary group). Both players have the same teacher (Shoshi), so were very familiar with each other's play. Still, Matsuo managed to surprise his opponent with a new move in the early middle game of the Yokofudori opening. Miyata first thought that he had a good answer, but changed his mind when he saw a variation he didn't like. As often happens, the move he chose turned out to be worse than the variation he feared and Matsuo got a strong position. Miyata tried everything to make it difficult, but all to no avail as Matsuo didn't make any mistakes and won convincingly. He will now play Kimura next. * Yamasaki won the television quick play tournament for young professionals (under 30 and no stronger than 6-dan) with a win against Kitahama in the final. Both players had already met two years ago in the final of the Shinjin-O tournament, which was also won by Yamasaki (2-1). Kitahama didn't get his revenge and lost the final of this tournament for the second time (he was beaten by Fukaura three years ago). * The Shinjin-O tournament is especially strong this year. Kimura and Horiguchi beat Anyoji and Kanezawa to join Suzuki and Kitahama in the semi-finals. A very strong line-up with a player from B1 (Suzuki), two from B2 (Kitahama and Kimura) and one from C1 (Horiguchi). No players from the C2 class among the final four must be quite unique. Kimura will play Kitahama and Horiguchi will play Suzuki for a place in the best-of-three final. * In the Asahi Open the three remaining amateurs Yoshizawa, Kagaya and Kimura played their second professional opponent. Yoshizawa has a great record against professionals (4 wins and 2 losses), but his game against Tomioka looked like a complete disaster in the middle game. However, Tomioka made a serious mistake in defence and this let Yoshizawa in, who coolly won the close endgame. Kimura also had an interesting game against Minami. He managed to get his favourite opening on the board, claiming he had played a 1000 games with it in training games, most of them on the internet. After the game, he said that he actually had already a game with the same endgame position as in this game against Minami. However, Minami showed had an important improvement in that position that stopped Kimura's attack and that was the end of Kimura's run in the Asahi Open. Kagaya's game against Izumi was the least interesting of the three games, as Izumi won convincingly. So now there are only two amateurs left: Yoshizawa and Ishii. Yoshizawa will play Chuza and Ishii will play Ono Yaichio next. The next report will probably be around August 9th, 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