Junisen A class
In the A class Junisen two games last week. Tanigawa played against Kato, who took no less than 33 minutes for the fourth move of the game. He finally picked a Yokofudori, which is very unusual for him, but he avoided the popular R8e variant, which gave the game a little bit of an old-fashioned flavour. It did not help him much as Tanigawa won the game quite convincingly (despite claiming that he had had no faith in his position in the middle game). Tanigawa is now back at 2-1 and still in the race for challenging Maruyama. Kato dropped back to 1-2 and is in relegation trouble again.
The second game in the A class was between winless Tanaka and
Aono. Neither player could afford to lose the game as 0-3 and
a bad Junisen position would make it very difficult to stay in
the top class. Still, both players played very positively and
thought they had a good position. Of course, only one of them
could be right and this turned out to be Tanaka, who found a
nice defensive move that gave him the advantage and eventually
the win. So Tanaka can still hope for a prolonged stay in the A class, while things now look very bleak for Aono.
Mud fight in Junisen B2
In the B2 Junisen class only the fourth round was being played,
but it has already turned into a mud fight. Leaders Kubo and Azuma lost, leaving only Hatakeyama Nariyuki and Tsukada with a 4-0 record. Even the group of followers is quite small, as only
Abe, Nakagawa, Kitahama, Azuma and Kubo have 3-1 scores. This is
good news for promotion favourite number one Fukaura, who started
badly and can now still hope that an 8-2 score and his good Junisen position is enough for promotion. With games against Kubo, Kitahama and Azuma still to come, his mission is less hopeless than it looks. Anyway, the big game of the next round is between the leaders Tsukada and Hatakeyama. The winner of that game takes a big step towards B1.
Naganuma surprises
In the C2 Junisen class the fourth round was played. As always,
this class is so big that the important question is who can keep
winning as one loss is sometimes fatal and two losses almost
always means the end of the promotion chances. After the 4th game
there are only four players left with a perfect record. Surprising leader of the pack is Naganuma, who beat co-leader Nozuki after Nozuki was a little too impatient with his attack. Big loss for Nozuki, who is one of the promotion favourites, and a big win for Naganuma, whose was not really considered a promotion candidate.
Toyokawa and Yamamoto are not such a big surprise as leaders, but
rookie Akutsu managed to keep up with them with a win over Oshima. Actually, his schedule is not so tough, so I think he is a dark horse for promotion. The rookies are doing well this year, as both Watanabe and Iijima won to stay one win from the leaders at 3-1. Other players with a borderline 3-1 score are Maeda,
Masuda, Nozuki, Izuka, Matsuo, Chuza, Kobayashi, Tamura, Ito No,
Kanezawa and Hirafuji.
Fukuzaki beats Fujii in Kio
In the Kio Fukuzaki scored a surprising win over Ryu-O Fujii to
reach the final eight. Even more surprising than the victory itself was that Fukuzaki won quite easily, in only 86 moves. Fujii seems to be thinking too much of Habu perhaps... Other players who qualified for the quarter final are Takahashi (winning against Shima), Maruyama (beating Inoue), Goda (beating Sanada) and Moriuchi (win over Nakamura).
Habu's fifteenth scalp
Habu again extended his record in the Kachinuki-sen by beating
Hatakeyama Mamoru, his fifteenth consecutive scalp in this
tournament. There was an interesting discussion before the game
about how much Habu would get if he won. As there was no precedent for his winning streak and the game fee is supposed to go up with every win, this was starting to get an expensive tournament for the sponsor. In the end the game fee was set to 500,000 Yen. I wonder what Habu will get if he beats Ogura, his next opponent...
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