From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 11 jun 1998 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 741, June 10th 1998) For the sixth game of the Meijin-sen we will have to wait another week. In this week's Shukan Shogi no commented game, so here is only the news: 1) In the Oi tournament the final round of the challenger leagues were played. In the Red League Sato made clear that he wants a rematch against Habu after the bad result (1-4) last year. He beat Kitajima to make it five straight wins and showed that he was by far the strongest in this group. It must be added that former Oi Takahashi (more than 10 years ago!) still plays well in this tournament. He lost only to Sato and by beating Shima in the final round, he secured his place in next year's Oi league. In the white group things are not so simple. Goda seemed to be in the driving seat, winning all of his first four games, but Abe kept it tight with a 3-1 score. In the final round Abe beat Hiura, but Goda suffered a surprising loss at the hands of second year pro Kimura. This means that both Abe and Goda now finished with 4-1 and a play-off is needed to decide the winner of the White Group. After this, the winner of this play-off game will play Sato for the right to challenge Habu. 2) The all important Junisen season has started with the first round of the B1-class. B1 is a class of twelve players this year, where only three players (Nakamura, Goda and Kamiya) do not have A-class experience. Furthermore, there is only one player in his twenties (Goda), while half of the players is in his forties or fifties. It is a class where strong veterans try to hang in as long as possible, and where the young stars go through without too much difficulty. This year Goda is the big favourite for promotion. He started well by beating Kamiya, who also promoted this year. Nakamura (also a favourite to go to the A-class next year) also won (against Fukuzaki). There were disappointing first round losses for Takahashi (against Kiriyama) and Minami (against Kobayashi). Still a long way to go in this all-play-all class of eleven rounds. 3) In the Oza Meijin Tanigawa played Kisei Yashiki for a spot in the semi-finals of the challenger tournament. Tanigawa used his famous endgame strength to get out of some middle game trouble, but if Yashiki had not overlooked that Tanigawa was threatening a difficult mate, things would not have been that clear. So, Tanigawa is now only two wins away from another match with Habu, even though the last time they played a match was already a year ago, when Tanigawa took the Meijin title from Habu. The other quarterfinal game was between Fukaura and Hatakeyama. Interestingly enough, the two played in last year's Oza challenger tournament as well. At that time it was Hatakeyama who won. This time the game ended in Fukaura's favour, so he is still has a chance for his second major title match after playing (and losing) the Oi match two years ago. That's all the news I have for this week, Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Complex Game Lab Electrotechnical Laboratory 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken, 305 JAPAN E-mail: grimberg etl go jp URL: http://www.etl.go.jp/etl/suiron/~grimberg/ Tel: +81-(0)298-54-3316 Fax: +81-(0)298-54-5918