Fujii challenges Habu for Oza title
Last week Tanigawa and Fujii played for the right to challenge Habu for the Oza title. Tanigawa was playing to meet Habu in three straight title matches, while Fujii was playing for his first challenge of Habu and his first challenge other than for the Ryu-O title. It was a nerve wrecking game as both players made a number of small mistakes in the very complicated
positions. In the end it was Tanigawa who made the final mistake and Fujii went straight for the king and won. A little surprising that Fujii is going to be challenging Habu, but that promises to be an interesting match-up.
Not only do they play for the first time on a big stage, but Fujii is one of the few players who has a winning record against Habu (4-2). The Oza match starts on August 29th.
Sato narrowly to Ryu-O challenger finals
In the Ryu-O tournament Miura and Sato played for a place in the
best-of-three challenger final. Miura came into the game well-prepared as he used only 5 minutes for the moves that were played before lunch. However, Sato was not impressed and attacked strongly. It was always a case of whether his attack would be strong enough and for a long time the professionals in the press room thought it would not be good enough and that Miura's king could escape up the board into a safe entering king position. But Sato found a very nice pawn drop that looked pretty harmless, but was actually stopping the king from entering. It was still very difficult, but Sato managed to keep Miura's king out of his position and won. A very close game and Sato now returns to the challenger final for the first time in four years where he will meet the winner of the game between Habu and Tanigawa.
Junisen A class
In the A class Junisen two games were played. Habu and Morishita
played an old-fashioned Yagura quick attack where surprisingly the defensive player Morishita played the attacking side. Habu showed that he has no equal in his present form, as he won fairly easily after a Morishita mistake. A good start for Habu who now has two wins from two games in the A class, while Morishita drops to 1-1.
In the other game Moriuchi and Shima played a wild game from the first couple of moves. Both players clearly were into this game, but it seems that Shima overdid it a little as he forced the position where this was not possible. In a position as unbalanced as that, this can quickly lead to disaster and that is exactly what happened. Moriuchi joins Habu with two wins, while Shima has now two losses and will fight against relegation again this year.
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