From: Eric Cheymol <shogi <at> FREE <dot> FR>
Date: 19 may 2002
Subject: Habu's magical tour in Paris (round 6)

I arrived rather late today at the tournament place, and thanks to Habu,
as he is used to playing until the very end, I found him still playing.
And his game was the very last game being played. All the other boards
were quiet, with kings in the center. Only Japanese journalists were
staring at the chess board. Almost all spectators left the place, except
Jacques Pineau who arrived this morning from Japan at 4 oclock in the
morning !!

Yoshiharu Habu was so concentrated than he didn't noticed that the
playing room was very hot and that he was still wearing a shirt and a
pullover.

As today was saturday, many spectators were attending the games as shown
in the photographs of this page
(http://www.nao-cc.com/naocc/naofide/ronde6.htm).

This disturbing conditions don't seem to bother Yoshiharu's
concentration. In Japan, the shogi matches are played with only a very
few number of spectators (scorekeeper, timekeeper, and a few others). So
that, Japanese shogi players are used to playing in perfect conditions.
When Habu plays, he is like alone with his pieces and his oppenent of
course : he only gave a look at the few spectators after signing the
scoresheeet.

What about the game itself now ?

When I arrived, Yoshiharu was a pawn up and had a good position (after
the 50th black move). I was thinking at about a move like Re7, keeping
an eye on the first line to be able to prevent the possible promotion of
the h pawn. I was surprised by 51.d6 which gives some hopes to black, as
the h pawn becomes unstoppable after sacrificing the black rook on b2
with check. After the game, Yoshiharu told me that he totally overlooked
this move. After a long thought, Yoshiharu found a very good odea which
forces the promotion of one pawn for each player or the capture of both
pawns. After this with two queens back on the board, Yosiharu used
accurately his rook to force his opponent to resign.

When black resigns, black has only 1 minute left on the clock and white
(Habu) has about 4'50" left !

So Habu is now equal third with only half a point behind the 2 leaders.

With 4 out of 6, Habu needs 2 out of the 3 remaining games to perform an
IM norm.
He will play twice against GM with the black pieces.

Tomorrow, he will play against the GM Lupu, the highest rated player in
the tournament, and i will arrive earlier than today !

Report in french and a few photographs in a couple of minutes on my page.

Eric

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