From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 14 aug 1996 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 648, August 14th 1996) Habu lost again! Is it the married life that is getting to him as it has influenced other players in the past, or are his opponents finally able to understand the weak points in his play? Anyway, Fukaura won the third game of the Oi match to reduce the deficit to 1-2. He had prepared a somewhat awkward looking new move in the B3c variation of the Yokofudori (Side Pawn) but Habu could not find the right response and got a worse position. A slight error by Fukaura in the middle game and the game was really on fire and for a long time the outcome was very unclear. Finally it was Habu that made the decisive mistake and the game ended in a Fukaura victory after 159 moves with both players in byoyomi. One and a half year ago, Shima and Tanigawa played for the challengership of Habu in the Kisei match. Shima won convincingly, only to be sweeped by Habu (3-0). Last week both players again met to decide who gained the right to challenge Habu. This time it was for the Oza title. Again Shima won without too many problems and so he will get another shot at Habu. Let's hope the match will be as exciting as their 1989 Ryu-O match (Habu won 4-3 with one jishogi). In the Ryu-O challenger tournament Sato reached the semi-finals by beating Hiura in a tough fight where he had always the upper hand, but had to be very careful not to let Hiura in. He succeeded and now has to play Takahashi for a place in the best-of-three challenger final. The other semi-final is between Moriuchi and Tanigawa. This year no major upsets in the Ryu-O with three A-class players and a B1-class player in the semis. In the A-junisen Nakahara scored his 100th victory over Yonenaga (Yonenaga has 79 victories). Both players are now 1-1, like almost all of the other players in the A class. Only Mori is 2-0 and Moriuchi and Shima (both at 0-1) still have to play to decide the player without a win after two rounds. It promises to be a very tight A-class Junisen fight again! -- Reijer Grimbergen Electrotechnical Laboratory Palcious Tsukuba 302 1-1-4 Umezono 1-24-8 Ninomiya Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305 JAPAN 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp Tel: 0298-59-1606 WWW: http://www.etl.go.jp:8080/etl/suiron/~grimberg Tel: +81-(0)298-54-5080 extension: 67431 Fax: +81-(0)298-58-5918