From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 11 oct 2002 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 962 and 963, October 2nd and 9th 2002) This week in Shukan Shogi the second game of the Oza match between Habu and Sato. Habu won another one-sided game and so far this match is not living up to expectations. Of course Habu can't be blamed for wanting to finishing this match early, as it would be great to have his hands free for the Ryu-O match. Here is the game with comments: Black: Habu Yoshiharu, Oza White: Sato Yasumitsu, Challenger 50th Oza-sen, Game 2, October 1st 2002 1.P7g-7f 00:01:00 00:00:00 2.P3c-3d 00:01:00 00:02:00 3.P2g-2f 00:02:00 00:02:00 4.P8c-8d 00:02:00 00:02:00 5.P2f-2e 00:05:00 00:02:00 6.P8d-8e 00:05:00 00:02:00 7.G6i-7h 00:08:00 00:02:00 8.G4a-3b 00:08:00 00:02:00 9.P2e-2d 00:08:00 00:02:00 10.P2cx2d 00:08:00 00:02:00 11.R2hx2d 00:08:00 00:02:00 12.P8e-8f 00:08:00 00:02:00 13.P8gx8f 00:08:00 00:02:00 14.R8bx8f 00:08:00 00:02:00 15.R2dx3d 00:09:00 00:02:00 16.B2b-3c 00:09:00 00:03:00 17.R3d-3f 00:16:00 00:03:00 18.K5a-4a 00:16:00 00:04:00 19.P*8g 00:33:00 00:04:00 20.R8f-8e 00:33:00 00:05:00 21.R3f-2f 00:36:00 00:05:00 22.S3a-2b 00:36:00 00:05:00 23.K5i-5h 00:37:00 00:05:00 24.S7a-6b 00:37:00 00:09:00 25.P3g-3f 00:39:00 00:09:00 26.G6a-5a 00:39:00 00:14:00 27.S3i-3h 00:41:00 00:14:00 28.P7c-7d 00:41:00 00:16:00 29.P3f-3e 00:48:00 00:16:00 A well-known move that leads to one of the sharpest variations of the Chuza-style Yokofudori. It seems that 30.Rx3e is bad here because of the fork 31.Bx3c+ Nx3c B*4f, so 30.N7c is the obvious move. Then 31.Bx3c+ Nx3c P3d N4e P3c+ Nx5g+ Kx5g B*3e K5h Bx2f +Px3b Kx3b is an example from game 1 of the 47th Oza-sen between Habu and Maruyama. Habu won that game, but it is far from clear that this position is actually better for black. 30.R8ex3e!? 00:48:00 01:11:00 A big surprise. Sato allows the bishop fork. It is not clear if he actually prepared this at home, since he took 55 minutes for this move. 31.B8hx3c+ 01:03:00 01:11:00 32.N2ax3c 01:03:00 01:11:00 33.B*4f 01:04:00 01:11:00 34.P*2e 01:04:00 01:14:00 35.R2f-1f 01:10:00 01:14:00 36.R3e-3d 01:10:00 01:14:00 37.P*3e 01:10:00 01:14:00 38.R3d-4d 01:10:00 01:16:00 39.B4fx9a+ 01:29:00 01:16:00 40.N8a-7c 01:29:00 01:16:00 41.R1f-3f 01:30:00 01:16:00 42.N3c-4e? 01:30:00 02:44:00 Played after 88 minutes, showing that Sato was having trouble with evaluating this position. As often happens, the move that Sato finally played is the worst of the three possible continuations here. Better were both 42.P*3g Nx3g B*5d R4f P*3f Rx4d Px4d P3d Px3g+ Px3c+ Gx3c Sx3g B2g+ P*3h N*4e S4h P*3g and 42.S2c P7e Px7e +B9b R2d P*7d N8e P7c+ Sx7c +B5f B*5d P3d. In both cases there are many difficult variations and it is hard to say who is better. It seemed that Sato didn't fancy his chances after 42.P*3g or 42.S2c and decided at the end of his long thought that the only move was 42.N4e. Unfortunately for him, this can already be considered the losing move. 43.L*4f! 01:59:00 02:44:00 Not a very nice looking move, as black uses his lance in a spot where it doesn't seem to be doing much and blocks the rook at the same time. However, in this position it is a good move. The pressure on 4c is going to be very important. Maybe Sato was a bit mesmerized by the fact that the natural 43.P4f is good for white after 44.P*3g S4g B*2g. After 43.L*4f, white is suddenly stuck for moves. 44.B*2h 01:59:00 03:22:00 White doesn't have much choice. He is still a lance behind and black has a promoted bishop. Time for white to reduce the material deficit. 45.N2i-3g! 02:36:00 03:22:00 This move needs careful calculation, but it works and this means that black can further activate his pieces. 46.N4ex5g+ 02:36:00 03:25:00 47.K5hx5g 02:36:00 03:25:00 48.R4d-5d 02:36:00 03:25:00 49.K5g-6h 02:37:00 03:25:00 50.B2hx1i+ 02:37:00 03:25:00 51.P3e-3d 02:54:00 03:25:00 52.+B1i-1h 02:54:00 03:27:00 53.N*2g!! 02:58:00 03:27:00 Brilliant. 53.R3e fails to +Bx1g and 53.P*2g has the same problem after 54.P*3e Rx3e +Bx1g. However, 53.N*2g is the second strange-looking drop that Habu plays in this game, and again his judgement is perfect. This knight drop is so strange, that it actually took the people in the press room a couple of minutes to realise that the piece on 2g was a knight instead of a pawn. Even Sato was completely taken by surprise. "I thought that maybe he had dropped the knight by mistake", he said after the game. The main reason why 53.N*2g works is that it gives black the option of playing P*2c next. This is very severe, as Gx2c is answered by Lx4c+ and Sx2c by P3c+. If white sticks to his plan and plays 54.P*3e Rx3e +Bx1g then after Nx2e +Bx3e Nx3e the black knights are an awesome attacking force. 54.G5a-4b 02:58:00 04:06:00 55.N3gx2e 03:24:00 04:06:00 56.K4a-5b 03:24:00 04:06:00 57.P*2d 03:25:00 04:06:00 58.P*3g 03:25:00 04:30:00 A desperate counter attack, but Sato already knows that he will be too late here. 59.P3d-3c+ 03:39:00 04:30:00 Of course. 59.Sx3g +B2g or 59.Rx3g P*2f N3e P*3f and white has some hope again. 60.S2bx3c 03:39:00 04:32:00 61.N2ex3c+ 03:39:00 04:32:00 62.G4bx3c 03:39:00 04:33:00 And things still don't seem to be that easy. Black is clearly better, but how to win from here? In the press room the professionals couldn't find a clear win, so they had to wait for Habu to show them how to finish this game in 10 moves. 63.P*3d 03:45:00 04:33:00 64.G3cx3d 03:45:00 04:33:00 65.S*4e! 03:45:00 04:33:00 The decider. White can't take this silver because of 65.Rx3b+. 66.P3gx3h+ 03:45:00 04:39:00 67.S4ex5d 03:52:00 04:39:00 This silver can't be taken right away and will thus play a decisive role in attack. 68.P*3e 03:52:00 04:41:00 69.N2gx3e 04:11:00 04:41:00 The knight, which was dropped in a strange place, jumps out to the perfect spot to give the black attack the extra firepower it needs. 70.+B1hx3f 04:11:00 04:41:00 71.N3ex4c+ 04:11:00 04:41:00 72.K5b-6a 04:11:00 04:41:00 73.S5dx5c+ 04:11:00 04:41:00 Resigns 04:11:00 04:41:00 Only 73 moves, but Sato has no choice. 74.Sx5c +Nx5c is hopeless and 74.N*5f or 74.S*5g pointless after 75.K7g. It seems that losing the Oi title to Tanigawa has made Habu very angry and that he is using this Oza match to take out his anger on Sato. The double title holder has looked completely helpless in the first two games. Still, he took the Kisei title from Goda after going 2-0 down, so there is still some hope that he can make a comeback in this match. In other shogi news: ================ * In the A Junisen, Habu had a very easy 4th round game against Shima. Shima took 29 minutes for his 42nd move and then decided that the position was too bad to play on. A rather surprising decision, as the position was still in the opening stage and even though Shima seemed to be in a little of a fix, there still seemed to be a lot of ways to fight on. Habu admitted that he was very surprised at Shima's early resignation as well. Sato had to work a little harder in his game against Miura, but he also had some luck in that Miura desperately wanted to show that the position that he lost with against Sato in last year's Junisen was actually playable. He didn't manage to show why and again lost the game without much of a fight. Finally, Morishita won a huge game against Aono. It was Morishita's first win after three consecutive losses and even though he still is at the bottom of the table, the victory against relegation rival Aono could be very important in the end. Despite this, Morishita still has a very tough schedule with games against Sato, Habu, Tanigawa and Maruyama. It is still very likely that he will find himself in B1 next year. * The C2 Junisen has an uneven number of players, so round 5 is kind of an intermediate round to make sure that all players play 10 games. Therefore, there were only 5 games and none of the leaders Iijima, Kubota and Ueno was involved in these games. However, Tamura beat rookie Kumasaka to go to 4-1 and keep the pressure on the leaders. Tamura is ranked 3rd in the league, so any mistake by the top players will put him in a promotion spot. Veteran Maeda also showed that he can still make an impact, as he defeated Anyoji. Maeda is now 3-1, while Anyoji suffered his second consecutive loss and dropped back to 3-2. * The Osho league looks pretty interesting this year. It is one of the strongest possible with Habu, Kubo, Goda, Tanigawa, Moriuchi, Fujii and Morishita as its members. Habu and Kubo started well with wins against Goda and Tanigawa respectively. Still, it seems hard to pick a favourite to challenge Sato from this group. * Tanigawa continues his good form with his first tournament victory in the Ginga-sen, a television tournament. That he beat Habu in the final must have made this even better, as Habu pretty much owns the Ginga-sen, having won the tournament four times in the last five years. * In the Shinjin-O match Suzuki drew first blood against Kimura, but Kimura did strike back in game 2, so this match will need a deciding game that will be played today. 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