From: Reijer Grimbergen ETL GO JP> Date: 21 apr 1999 Subject: This week in Shukan Shogi (no. 785, April 21st 1999) This week in Shukan Shogi almost no news of importance. Nakahara beat Minami in the Oza Challenger knock-out to reach the quarterfinals. Minami completely overlooked a relative simple pawn drop and that was enough for Nakahara to win. Moriuchi was the second player after Goda to reach the challenger tournament of the Ryu-O. Moriuchi beat Nakamura in a complicated endgame that could have gone either way. In the second chance round Habu lost to Tanigawa, so Habu is now out of the race for the Ryu-O title. In the Red group of the Oi leagues there were two games. Meijin Sato had lost the first two games and needed to win all remaining games to have a chance to stay in the league. On the other hand, his opponent Abe had a 1-1 score and needed to win to keep his chances of challenging Habu alive. It was a gruelling game between two players with the same teacher. The first game ended in sennichite at half past 9 in the evening. The replay was decided by a nasty tokin sacrifice by Sato, just when Abe thought he was winning. Both players now have to aim at keeping their spot in the league for next year. The big battle in the group was between undefeated leaders Tanigawa and Shima. The game developed just like the game between Sato and Tanigawa in the Kisei tournament which Tanigawa won. Amazingly, Shima admitted that he had not looked at this game yet. For a while this lack of preparation did not seem to matter, but when Shima thought he could take a vital pawn for nothing, Tanigawa showed that he had calculated deeper and with some nice pawn sacrifices ruined Shima's position. Tanigawa now probably only needs to win one game from the remaining two to win the Red Group. In Shukan Shogi this week also the results for all professionals in the 1998-1999 season. Here is some of the data: Best average: Number of wins: Number of games played: ------------- --------------- ----------------------- 1) Namekata 0.778 1) Fujii 43 1) Fujii 59 2) Goda 0.750 2) Namekata 42 2) Habu 59 3) Kimura 0.745 3) Habu 41 3) Tanigawa 59 4) Fujii 0.729 4) Goda 39 4) Yashiki 57 5) Miura 0.708 5) Tanigawa 36 5) Sato Yasumitsu 55 6) Ogura 0.707 6) Kimura 35 6) Namekata 54 7) Maruyama 0.705 7) Miura 34 7) Goda 52 8) Habu 0.695 8) Sato Yasumitsu 32 8) Miura 48 9) M.Hatakeyama 0.683 9) Maruyama 31 9) Kimura 47 9) Fukaura 0.683 9) Yashiki 31 10) Morishita 45 9) Sato Shinya 0.683 10) Nakamura 45 10) Kubo 45 Longest winning streak: ----------------------- 1) Kubo 14 2) Maruyama 12 3) Fujii 11 4) Goda 11 5) Kitahama 11 6) Sugimoto 11 It is interesting that all numbers are down compared to last season. Has shogi become more competitive lately? More next week with the second game of the Meijin match and the second game of the Zen Nihon Pro Tournament, Reijer -- Reijer Grimbergen Complex Games 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