From: Reijer Grimbergen FU IS SAGA-U AC JP> Date: 12 sep 2002 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 959, September 11th 2002) Not much news in Shukan Shogi this week. Here it is before it gets old: * For a long time it looked like Abe would be Habu's challenger in the Ryu-O. After winning the first game of the best-of-three challenger match against Nakata Hiroki, he also dictated the pace in the second game. However, Nakata showed the resilience that got him into the final and kept the game very close with an unusual way to activate his promoted bishop. In the endgame both players had chances to win, but Abe made the final mistake and Nakata won after a gruelling 167 moves. The mini-match is now tied and the final game on September 13th will have to decide who will be Ryu-O challenger. * In the A-class of the Junisen the final game of the third round was played between Goda and Tanigawa. Tanigawa is one of the professionals who recently adopted Kondo's quick Nakabisha opening. He had success with it in this game, as Goda made a calculation error early on. It was close until the very end, but Tanigawa showed his splendid form and won by one move. He now joined Habu, Fujii, Aono, Miura and Shima in the lead with 2-1. On the other hand, Goda drops to 1-2 and finds himself on a relegation spot because of his bad position in the class. Things are going to be very close this year, though. After the game Tanigawa commented: "I am now number 1, but if I would have lost this game, I would have been number 9". The difference between winning and losing a single game can be that big. I will again be away next week, so my next Shukan Shogi report will be in two weeks. 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