From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 17 jun 2002 Subject: Re: Amateurs vs professionals Hi Martin, Thanks for your questions. As more people might be interested in the answers, I took the liberty of CC-ing my answers to the whole list. The detailed results of the pro-ama games were: Ina, 4-d - Kaneuchi, ama 0-1 Ueno, 4-d - Kagaya, ama 0-1 Takano, 4-d - Yoshizawa, ama 0-1 Ohira, 4-d - Shimizugami (?), ama 0-1 Nakao, 4-d - Fujii, ama 0-1 Miyata, 4-d - Yamada, ama 1-0 Kumasaka, 4-d - Ishii, ama 0-1 Ito Hirobumi, 6-d - Nakamura, ama 1-0 Anyoji, 4-d - Kimura, ama 0-1 As you can see, in the first round the amateurs only played the 4-dan players (except for Ito, who is now at the bottom of C2 after his return from the free class). However, it is generally believed that one needs to be about 6-dan professional to clear the 3-dan league and become a pro, so this is really an amazing result for the amateurs. The amateurs have some interesting opponents in the next round to sink their teeth in: Shimizugami - Ono, 7-d Kagaya - Izumi, 7-d Yoshizawa - Tomioka, 7-d Fujii - Kimura, 6-d Ishii - Tamaru, 8-d Kaneuchi - Ishida, 9-d Kimura - Minami, 9-d Looks like this will be the end for most amateurs, but I think especially Tamaru and Ishida will not be too happy about running the risk of public humiliation ;-). As for the question of putting an end to the seperation between amateurs and professionals: that was entirely my own opinion. Nothing was written in Shukan Shogi and the Shogi Renmei is much too conservative to seriously discuss this. I doubt that even when an amateur player wins the Asahi Open, this will start a discussion of ending the Shoreikai. I should have made more clearly that this statement was my own. I now realize that combining my own opinions with stuff written in Shukan Shogi can lead to confusion. I will try to be more careful next time. Reijer DANERUD MARTIN wrote: > Dear Reijer, > > >>* 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? >> > > > I have some questions about this news item. Which were the detailed results > in the games amateurs vs professionals? Were there any famous players > who lost? Is the speculation in the end of your text something that was written > in Shukan Shogi or is it your own thinking? It would also be interesting to see > how Shogi Sekkai will treat this news item. > > Best regards, > > Martin > > > > -- 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