From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 8 nov 2002 Subject: Re: Level of Shogi in Europe Here's my two cents on this issue. I think the most important point of Gert's mail is the difference in opening strength between strong Japanese players and strong foreign players. There is an article about the Shogi forum in this week's issue in Shukan Shogi (many pictures, not much text) that literally says about Gert that his opening play is "a little soft". Of course this is surrounded by all kinds of compliments about Gert's work ethic (playing shogi on a pocket shogi board in restaurants) and his strong attacking skills. However, "a little soft" should be interpreted as a strong comment by Japanese standards. The opening is an area where foreign players must improve to actually have a chance of making an impact against strong Japanese amateurs (not to mention professionals). The problem in shogi openings is that it is not enough to remember the moves. Remembering moves is good to avoid traps, but to actually be good at the opening it is important to understand the plans behind opening play. For this it is necessary to be able to read Japanese (yes, Eric, here is my pet advice again). It is not enough to be able to read the moves and who is better, but also the actual explanation of ideas behind the opening. There are many, many books on opening play (I estimate that about 70% of all shogi books is about the opening) and some of them are even pretty good. Without access to this knowledge, it will be very hard to become a really good player and I hope that Gert's mail is an indication that he is aiming for that. Gert seems to be highly motivated and I hope that he will put in the effort to improve this weakness in his game. Opening play has always been a weakness in my game and cost me a lot of grief when I came to Japan. When I played really strong players (and I played a lot of them), I would almost never recover from a bad opening, losing the vast majority of my games. In the early 90s I actually tried to work on that, buying the necessary shogi books, but it always was a half-hearted effort. I always found studying openings boring and much preferred reading commented games (especially games commented by Tanigawa are wonderful!) and solving tsume shogi and next move problems. This was enough to make me a top player in Europe, but never got me anywhere in Japan. Reijer Schnider wrote: > Dear Shogi friends! > > There were a few mails concerning the level of play in Europe and I want to give my opinion on this point. > At the international Shogiforum I got the chance to play a few games with professionals and also to analyse with them. I was quite impressed by their knowledge and the speed of their calculation - I donīt think we can catch up with strong Japanese male professionals in the near future but our level is not that bad either. On rook handicap I easily beat Aono, 9dan, in an exhibition match and other Europeans have won rook handicaps too. At bishop handicap we have some chances too. > And if this is not enough to aquire at least good amateur status I also won on even against a Japanese woman professional - I spoke with other Europeans about that and for example Eric Cheymol has also won even games against woman professionals. So even tough it is clear that our level of play is weaker than in Japan we are definitely quite strong amateurs. > > One more thing I experienced comparing European and Japanese players. When playing against Japanese amateurs (from 2dan to 4dan, also some 5dans) I got a worse position after the opening in nearly all my games, and this does not happen to me in Europe - Japanese know a lot more about joseki (probably because of better access to books, and magazines) - but when it comes to fighting and endgame calculations they are weaker than Europeans with the same rank. I won around 70% of my games against 4-Dans and all even games against weaker japanese amateurs because of these better calculation abilities. > > Gert Schnider, 5-Dan -- 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