From: Jochum Shogi web de> Date: 01 sep 2004 Subject: The Shogi ESC WOSC 2004 in Munich / Germany - a short report Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Save on inkjet and toner, and get free shipping on orders over $50. http://click.topica.com/= caacBBya2i6YsbnuqMaa/Inksoutlet ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear shogi-players, here is a short report about the European Shogi Championship and the=20 World Open Shogi Championship 2004 that took place in Pullach near=20 Munich from the 26th to the 29th of August. Marc already put all results= =20 on the web as you know. (Thank you, Marc) The Castle Schwaneck where the tournament was hosted provides a very=20 nice environment for a shogi tournament. Unfortunately the castle is=20 being renovated completely. In Spring when we had the usual Pullach Open= =20 the youth hostel management told me that most of the renovation should=20 be finished by the end of August. But as of now the conditions were even= =20 worth. So we could only imagine the romantic castle behind the=20 scaffolding that covered the facade. Access to some facilities and rooms= =20 was also limited. That includes the big dining room, the nearby toilets=20 and the balcony with the nice view over the river Isar and to the Alps.=20 Lets hope that the 5 Million Euro they will spend, will let the castle=20 shine beautifully again. The tournament itself was held at the hall of=20 the knights ("RITTERSAAL"). This room was not yet renovated. Its=20 atmosphere was a mixture of dusty old knights honour and grumpy cosiness= =20 (right?). The first players arrived on Thursday at midday. It took 8 hours for the= =20 Austrians that were stuck in the holiday traffic. But the journey for=20 the Ukrainians on the bus must have been even longer. Just in the last=20 second before they left to Germany, they got their visas. Unfortunately=20 we failed to get the visas for the Russian shogi players. The EC never saw such a strong field of Japanese shogi players. Manabu=20 Terao even came all the way form Japan! In contrast many strong European= =20 shogi players including all former European champions were not able to=20 come (for different reasons). The good relationship I have to the hostel paid off as they did not=20 charge me for the rooms that I booked but did not need in the end. This=20 and the fact that we had so much sponsorship money that was spread over=20 less people than expected allowed me to reduce the price for=20 accommodation to only 16 Euro for the whole event and to 8 Euro for the=20 meals only. A major disappointment before the tournament was that the cups and=20 medals I ordered from Japan did not reach me in time. On Monday (after=20 the tournament) I had a notice in the mail about the parcel: As it seems= =20 it arrived already in Germany on the 8th of August but was lying around=20 at some custom office. The cups and medals will be sent to the winners=20 after they have been engraved. The tournaments started with the European Blitz Championship on=20 Thursday. As always time management played a major factor in the Blitz.=20 Some games ended with funny results (I for example promoted my rook on=20 the fifth rank in one game...). Yuji Kikuta won the tournament with 7=20 points and no loss. He is the new European Blitz Champion. The detailed results can be found at www.shogi.de/2004esc/): As far as I know most shogi players went to bed relatively early.=20 Between 23:30 and half past midnight three more shogi players arrived=20 that were stuck in the traffic, drove to the wrong =93Pullach=94 (I learned= =20 that there are three towns called =93Pullach=94 around Munich!) or had a= =20 late flight to Munich. At Friday morning when the EC and WOSC started we had 53 participants.=20 Unfortunately that is an uneven number; so each round one player had to=20 take a bye. 2 players entered in the second round. The first round of the EC had only one small surprise. Andreas Pietz (6=20 Kyu) won against Jochen Drechsler (2 Dan). But Pietz is much stronger=20 than his rating indicates. In the second round two results were a bit unexpected. Pietz (again) won= =20 against a stronger player (but not so much as in the first round) namely= =20 Andreas Neumaier. Anders Vidal (as 3 Kyu) even won against a 3 Dan (Hans= =20 Segers). But I am sure that he is also much stronger than one might=20 expect from his rating only. Before the third round five Europeans and three Japanese were left. In=20 this Quarterfinal the stronger players could all win their game. Before=20 the start of the tournament the strong Japanese were clear favourites=20 for the European championship title. Apart from the overall rank in the=20 EC the place for the best European citizen was also hard-fought. ISPS=20 (the International Shogi Popularization Society) donated two high=20 quality shogi sets (koma). One was set as prize for the best European=20 citizen in the EC. After the quarterfinal Gert Schnider was the only European citizen left.= =20 So he already won the fight for the koma-prize. In the semi-final Yuji Kikuta won against Schnider. And Hideki Tashiro=20 won against Yoshiyuki Uemura. No surprise then in the semi-final. The final saw two very strong Japanese. Kikuta won the final game=20 against Tashiro and the title of European Shogi Champion. In the final=20 for third place Uemura ended all hopes of any European citizen to reach=20 the first three. Thus the EC developed as expected: The Japanese dominated in all games.=20 Would the WOSC show any upsets? So far (that is after round 5 of the WOSC) Tsukasa Sera was the only=20 player without a loss. He did not have much opposition in the first=20 rounds as there were not many strong players that started in the open=20 tournament. But in round 5 he beat Manabu Terao. In the sixth round we saw maybe an early final: Sera against Kikuta.=20 Sera won a close game (as far as I can tell). Only Japanese players on=20 the first five places. Frank R=F6vekamp on the sixth rank was the only=20 European player with five points. In round 7 Sera secured his first place with a win over R=F6vekamp. In=20 round 8 Sera could also stand his ground as he won against Tashiro. The last round did not change the order of the first three players.=20 Tsukasa Sera won the WOSC without losing a single game. He is followed=20 on the second place by Yuji Kikuta with 8 points. Third place won Hideki= =20 Tashiro. The best European player and the only player that ended higher up than=20 one of the Japanese was Karl Wartlick with the best SOS of all players=20 with six points. He won the second set of shogi pieces that ISPS sponsored.= We had also prizes for different kyu-groups: Group A (1-kyu to 3-kyu): Andreas Neumaier on place 14 Group B (4-kyu to 6-kyu): Tobias Marczewski on place 11 (!!) Group C (7-kyu to 9-kyu): Anh Tuan Nguyen on place 19 Group D (10-kyu to 12-kyu): Alexander Hermann on place 36 Group E (13-kyu and below): Renaud Dubedout on place 43 I hope that everybody enjoyed the tournament! Finally I would like to thank all the players that helped me with=20 different things in the planning phase or during the tournament.=20 Especially I would like to thank Marc Marian for creating and daily=20 updating such a nice web site for the EC. See you all in Pardubice next year. Jochen Drechsler. Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Amazing Diet Patch The fastest - Easiest way to lose weight! 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