From: Richard Sams <rjfs <at> PARKCITY <dot> NE <dot> JP>
Date: 2 mar 2002
Subject: Moriuchi Becomes Meijin Challenger

Hello all.

Since this is my first mail to the list, a brief word of self-introduction.
I am a translator (Japanese-English) and have lived in Japan for the past 13
years. Recently I have been playing Shogi quite a lot, particularly over the
Internet. I played in the last two MSO events in London, so some of you may
know me from there.

Tired after work, I forgot that yesterday was the last day of the Junisen
(Group A) until I turned on the TV at about midnight and they were
broadcasting it live. By that time, most of the games had finished, but two
of the key games - Moriuchi-Fujii and Habu-Senzaki - were reaching their
closing stages. Miura had beaten Kato, which meant that Kato's relegation to
B1 had already been decided. It also meant that Senzaki would have to win
against Habu to avoid relegation himself!

Junisen games are only shown live on TV on this last day, and this insight
into the tense atmosphere is very interesting for Shogi fans. There is a
very large difference between the incomes of players in A and B1, so the
relegation battles are particularly fierce.

When I started watching the Moriuchi-Fujii game, Fujii's position was
already hopeless and it was clear from his posture and the speed of his
moves (he was not in byoyomi) that he had already given up. But he played
one more defensive move, allowing Moriuchi a simple seven-move mate. Instead
of playing immediately, Moriuchi seemed to be savoring the moment. He calmly
poured himself a cup of tea and sat staring at the board for several
minutes, sipping his tea. He then played the decisive move and Fujii
resigned immediately. Thus Moriuchi (with only one loss) became this year's
challenger for the Meijin title. The seven-game match begins in April.

The focus then shifted to the two remaining games, Sato-Morishita and
Habu-Senzaki. With two losses, Sato knew at the start of this last round
that Moriuchi would have to lose for him to have a chance of becoming the
challenger. Sato played Furibisha, which he has recently been playing quite
a lot, including an amazing win against Habu in the first game of the
current Osho match. In this game, Morishita apparently had a clearly
superior position in the middlegame, but something went horribly wrong in
the endgame and, with his king under a fierce attack and unable to make any
headway against Sato's anaguma castle, he resigned. By this time Sato must
have heard that Moriuchi had won, so it was a bitter-sweet victory for him.

This left Habu-Senzaki. Although it was already well past midnight (even the
last Junisen games tend to finish around 1.00 a.m.), they were still in the
middlegame! But Senzaki only had three minutes and Habu five minutes or so
left before they entered byoyomi. The TV commentator was Shima, who has been
promoted to the A Group from BI after being relegated last year. Shima
wasn't sure what was going on, but slightly favored Habu's chances. Although
Habu only had a gold in hand and Senzaki's king was protected by three
generals, Habu forced his opponent's king into the center of the board and
managed to keep the attack going. In the meantime, Senzaki went into byoyomi
and desperately counterattacked. Habu fended off this attack coolly and
Senzaki resigned a few moves later with mate imminent. And so Senzaki, one
of the colorful and popular players, was relegated to B1 - a sad outcome for
Shogi fans.

To sum up, Moriuchi is the Meijin Challenger and Kato and Senzaki have been
relegated. Shima and Goda have been promoted to A from B1.

That's all for now.

Richard Sams