From: Astarte CHELLO SE> Date: 13 jan 2003 Subject: Stockholm Open 2003 Only 8 players struggled out the Stockholm Open of 2003. Final standings after 6 rounds with the swiss pairing system : Place Name Federation Rating Score Buchholtz Progressive 1. Nilsson, Carl Johan SWE 2 Dan 1923 5 19 17 2. Hartman, Christer SWE 1 kyu 1622 5 18 18 3. Vidal, Anders SWE 4 kyu 1370 4 18 13 4. Danerud, Martin SWE 2 Dan 1546 4 17 15 5. Rouhani, Farhad SWE 7 kyu 1129 3 17 9 6. Rabe, Jan SWE 6 kyu 1223 2 18 8 7. Andersson, Joakim SWE 11 kyu 902 1 18 4 8. Juntti, Tord SWE 11 kyu 769 0 19 0 Only four games emerged with the lower rated player being victorious : Danerud - Vidal 0-1, Rouhani - Rabe 1-0, Danerud - Hartman 1-0, Hartman - Nilsson 1-0. With the time control : 30 min + 60s byoyomi, there were many interesting battles decided in byoyomi. It is the opinion of the writer that this is a nice tournament form for shogi, that decidedly deserves more testing. The young players Vidal and Rouhani had many hardfought games, and showed potential for progressing shogi strength. The imposition of having to write protocol was imposed on the players until 5 minutes remained on the clock. This experiment turned out quite well. The general idea is to try to accumulate some kind of shogi base in the future. If shogi shall become successful as an oriental game in the west, I think it has to try to attract humans with an academic partiality towards the philosophical side of the game (and perhaps life in general). Trying to create an analogy to ChessBase is easier said than done though.... A suggestion is to save games for posterity similar to the example given in PSN format below. It is very frustrating, in my opinion, that it is not possible to save complete tournament games in the rudimentary form of tournament conditions that is currently "state-of-the-art" in the west. In the future it should be possible to use electronic boards that automatically register the moves. An interesting game from Round 4 : [Round "4"] [Event "Stockholm Open 2003"] [Date "2003 January 12th"] [Site "Stockholm, Sweden"] [Sente "Martin Danerud"] [Gote "Christer Hartman"] [Opening "Fortress Demolition strategy"] [Result "1-0"] 1 P7f P3d 2 P1f P4d 3 S4h S6b 4 P4f P8d 5 S4g G3b 6 S5f G5b 7 R4h G5b-4c 8 G4i-5h P8e 9 B7g S4b 10 S8h S3c 11 P3f P5d 12 N3g S5c 13 P4e P2d 14 P2f R5b 15 K6h S6d 16 Px4d Sx4d 17 S4e P5e! {Restricting the black bishop severely. The point of white's strategy.} 18 Sx4d Bx4d 19 Rx4d!? {Creating practical problems for white, since the white king is unsafe.} Gx4d 20 P*4e G5d! 21 P2e!? R*3i ? {21. - Px2e! 22. Nx2e R*2i is simple and strong, since it eliminates counterplay. White chose the wrong plan here.} 22 Px2d Rx3g?? {White discovers too late the murderous bishop drop on 1e. This grave mistake leads to the loss of a general for white. 22. - P*2b is much better.} 23 P2c+ ! G4b 24 +P3b ! {Here I had the unpleasant feeling that the predator had awakened in my opponent.... White's task of defence is now very difficult.} +R2h 25 +Px4b Kx4b 26 B*6a R5c 27 S*4d Gx4d 28 Px4d S*5b 29 G*4c Sx4c 30 Px4c+ Rx4c 31 Bx4c+ Kx4c 32 P*4e S*3c 33 R*5a K3b 34 S*4d P*4b 35 Sx5e N*8d!? {counterstrike, maybe too late.} 36 Sx6d Nx7f 37 K7i Px6d 38 P*2d +Rx2d 39 S*1e +R2i 40 G5h-5i P1d 41 Bx3c+ Nx3c 42 Rx1a Px1e ?? {The losing move. White overlooks a tsume. 42. - G*2a !! seems to be winning (found by Jan Molin).} 43 S*4a K4c 44 G*4d mate Pax vobiscum Christer Hartman