From: Larry Kaufman COMCAST NET> Date: 16 sep 2002 Subject: Pocono Meijin tournament This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_d6BdWkxmbv+pXSBdyJS2fw) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This weekend featured a tournament in the Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania. This annual event enables players from NY and DC to play lots of shogi, because we all stay in one rented house and eat there too, so there is little time lost in commuting and eating out. There were just nine players, but six were 4 or 5 dan (the others were one shodan and two kyu players). It was decided to run the event as a double round robin, with one even game and one handicap game (when appropriate) for each pairing. Unfortunately some players came late or left early without completing all games, but more than 3/4 of the scheduled games were completed. I won the event with ten wins (including all seven of my games in the even-game round) and two losses. Second place was Jiro Yoshinari (also of D.C.) with 9 wins and 7 losses. Mr. Fujiwara of the NY club scored 7 wins and 3 losses. He is a past U.S. champion, perhaps the strongest 4 Dan in the U.S., and also has helped direct events in NY. Unfortunately he must shortly return to Japan, which will leave NY with no one rated over 2200 for the first time in memory. The most surprising result was M. Hayashi, long time shogi promoter, who scored 7 out of the 8 games he played despite his low rating of 1826. Of the 23 games played with handicaps, the stronger player won 14 and lost 9, about in line with expectations. Of the 26 even games played where there was a meaningful rating difference (over thirty points), the stronger player won by 24-2, confirming the validity of the ratings. The only upsets involved Mr. Yoshinari, who upset Mr. Fujiwara but was himself upset my Mr. Hayashi. A crosstable may follow soon. Larry Kaufman --Boundary_(ID_d6BdWkxmbv+pXSBdyJS2fw) Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

This weekend featured a tournament in the Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania. This annual event enables players from NY and DC to play lots of shogi, because we all stay in one rented house and eat there too, so there is little time lost in commuting and eating out. There were just nine players, but six were 4 or 5 dan (the others were one shodan and two kyu players). It was decided to run the event as a double round robin, with one even game and one handicap game (when appropriate) for each pairing. Unfortunately some players came late or left early without completing all games, but more than 3/4 of the scheduled games were completed.

I won the event with ten wins (including all seven of my games in the even-game round) and two losses. Second place was Jiro Yoshinari (also of D.C.) with 9 wins and 7 losses. Mr. Fujiwara of the NY club scored 7 wins and 3 losses. He is a past U.S. champion, perhaps the strongest 4 Dan in the U.S., and also has helped direct events in NY. Unfortunately he must shortly return to Japan, which will leave NY with no one rated over 2200 for the first time in memory. The most surprising result was M. Hayashi, long time shogi promoter, who scored 7 out of the 8 games he played despite his low rating of 1826.

Of the 23 games played with handicaps, the stronger player won 14 and lost 9, about in line with expectations. Of the 26 even games played where there was a meaningful rating difference (over thirty points), the stronger player won by 24-2, confirming the validity of the ratings. The only upsets involved Mr. Yoshinari, who upset Mr. Fujiwara but was himself upset my Mr. Hayashi.

A crosstable may follow soon.

Larry Kaufman

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