From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 14 jun 2002 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 945 and 946, June 5th and 12th 2002) Because of the early finish of the Meijin match there was no title match game in the two latest Shukan Shogi. However, there were some other results to report: * Only ten days after the Meijin title finished, the battle for the next one is already in progress. In the A class Goda had a fine start with a win against Morishita, although he will probably not put this one in his biography. It was basically Morishita all the way until he wanted to improve his position too slowly. This basically gave Goda two free moves, one of which was a hidden lance drop that both attacked and defended. This turned the game in Goda's favour, who is looking to improve on his first year in the top class, where he couldn't avoid relegating to B1 straight away. Shima also had a good start in his return to the top class with a victory against Fujii. It was a tough game where both players fought out a theoretical battle in the latest variation of the Fujii system. Shima made the first slip, but an important mistake in defence turned the tables. This year's A class looks to be very tight on both ends. * The final round of the Oi leagues were played last week. In the Red group either Tanigawa or Kimura would be the winner, with Tanigawa at 4-0 and Kimura at 3-1. Tanigawa lost his final game against Maruyama, but it didn't matter as Kimura also lost (against Matsuo). Therefore, Tanigawa will play the winner of the White group for the right to challenge Habu. In this group Moriuchi and Sato were 3-1 going into the final round. Neither made a mistake as Moriuchi beat Kanezawa and Sato beat Awaji. To decide the winner of the white group, a play-off between the Meijin and the Osho title holders will be played on the 17th. * Young prodigy Watanabe's run in the Oza tournament (seven consecutive wins from the bottom of the qualification) was stopped in the quarterfinals by Osho Sato Yasumitsu. Watanabe started the game well, but a questionable move in the middle game gave Sato a lead that was enough to win, even though some accurate calculations were needed to secure the victory. Fujii also reached the quarterfinals with a win against Kubo, but there were no comments on that game in Shukan Shogi. This indicates that this was probably a very one-sided game. * June 1st 2002 will probably be an historic day in ama-pro shogi. On that day 9 amateurs were given the chance to try their luck against the professionals in the first round of the Asahi Open tournament. Internet has given the amateurs much more possibilities to play against other top amateur players all over Japan. Also, the exchange of information has become much easier and the general feeling was that the top amateurs are slowly bridging the gap with the professionals. It was expected that this year they might even win about three out of nine games. However, at the end of day the shocking result was a 7-2 victory for the amateurs. Only Ito Hirobumi and rookie Miyata managed to win their games. All other professionals lost. Will this result be the start of a discussion about the end of the separation between professionals and amateurs? For the near future the question is: now that they have the numbers, how far will the amateurs be able to go in this year's tournament? 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