From: Richard Sams parkcity ne jp> Date: 22 mar 2007 Subject: Re: Watanabe's comments Here are Watanabe's comments on today's game against Bonanza,=20 translated from his blog: From Akira Watanabe=92s Blog March 22, 2007 Special Game Against Bonanza Part 1 =96 Preparations for the Game In May last year I saw Bonanza play in the World Computer Shogi=20 Championship. On the basis of that, I said that Bonanza=92s strength was= =20 the equivalent of a 1-dan Shoreikei member at 30 seconds per move=20 rapidplay shogi and about 2-3 kyu Shoreikai at non-rapidplay shogi. I=20 thought that if Bonanza remained at the same strength, I would win=20 quite easily with 2 hours on the clock, as in today=92s game. Even so, I knew I couldn=92t afford to be too confident. Starting about a= =20 week before today=92s event, I played several hundred games against=20 Bonanza, though in most cases I stopped the game before the end because=20 I felt I could not learn anything more. From these games, I got a very=20 good idea of Bonanza likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. In=20 fact I think I now know more about Bonanza than any other shogi=20 professional! Regarding my strategy, I heard many times that computer shogi expert=20 Katsumata 6-dan had said =93Bonanza is strongest when playing 4th file=20 rook anaguma.=94 I assumed that Bonanza=92s team would also have heard this= =20 and that their preparations would probably focus on this opening=20 strategy. This turned out to be right. You see, shogi professionals are=20 also good at analysis behind the scenes! So I knew a lot about Bonanza=92s character and I had prepared a good=20 anti-4th file rook anaguma strategy. I had the feeling I couldn=92t lose= =20 this game, but I still had one concern: maybe the Bonanza program had=20 been improved (made stronger) for this game. This concern also proved=20 to be correct. (Part 2 next time) --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: = shogi-l shogi net EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Ys.= aB5TiY.= c2hvZ2kt Or send an email to: shogi-unsubscribe topica com For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=3DTEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------