"Opening Edison" fails
A big game in the A class between Morishita and Tanaka. Both
had 1-2 scores going into the game and the difference between
winning and losing would be the difference between an outside
chance of challenging Maruyama and a tough struggle to avoid
relegation. Everything seemed to go Tanaka's way as he showed
why he is called the "Opening Edison" by inventing a new type
of Yagura castle that looked very weird (G3c-S3b-G4a), but
turned out to be very hard to break down. However, "a winning position is like a devil" as Tanaka started dreaming of an easy win and lost his concentration. In the end it was only one slack move that led Morishita back in, but it was enough to lose the game.
5 games in Junisen C1
In C1 there is an uneven number of players, so an intermediate
round is necessary to give all players the right number of ten
games in the end. Therefore, only 5 games were played in C1 last
week. The most interesting game seemed to be the game between
Namekata and Hiura as both players had 2-1 scores so far and it
was only 10 days earlier that Namekata suffered that disappointing defeat against Sugimoto. Namekata seemed to have picked himself up as he won the game and is now one of the leaders at 3-1.
Yashiki really seems to like it in C1, as he had a golden opportunity to become the sole leader but lost instead to Kodama (not really the most formidable opponent imaginable). Yashiki seemed to have a golden opportunity this year to finally get out of the C1 class, but with losses against players like Manabe and Kodama he is not making it easier for himself. With 3-2 he still has some chance to promote as C1 might be very close this year, but there is no margin of error anymore.
In the other two games Nakata Hiroki suffered his second loss in
a row against Sanada. Both players now have 3-2 scores. Sato
Shuji joined the leaders at 3-1 with a win over Hatakeyama. It
was quite an interesting middle game as Sato voluntarily put
his rook in some far away corner, but with that took away all
of Hatakeyama's attacking possibilities. Hatakeyama thought about
resigning, played on and almost won the game ("I thought I had done it again" -Sato). He missed his chance and Sato won.
Quarter finals in Kio challenger tournament
The challenger tournament of the Kio has advanced to the quarter
finals. This year some veteran players managed to squeeze between
the top as Kiriyama had a great win over Sato Yasumitsu. Also,
Fukuzaki beat Fujii and Takahashi beat Shima. The quarter finals
are as follows: Takahashi-Kubo, Tanigawa-Fukuzaki, Kiriyama-Maruyama and Goda-Moriuchi. This last game was already played last week and Goda showed that he is slowly getting out of his slump as he beat Moriuchi to become the first player to advance to the semi finals.
Habu on record
Habu extended his record in the Kachinuki-sen to 16 consecutive wins with a win over Ogura. It was a game where Ogura did not seem to have much fun as Habu attacked first, got the advantage and converted that to a win with some fine endgame play. Habu now faces Shima next, and he probably wants revenge for the defeat in their A class game last week.
Will China dominate Shogi?
Is shogi going to be dominated by the Chinese in the near future?
This week's Shukan Shogi has two news items that make this a relevant question. First, the 20th Sukusuku Osho-hai Kanto-chiku tournament for junior high school teams of three players was won by a team from Beijing playing over the Internet. It won the final against a team from Tokyo with 3-0. Will one of these young boys be a future Habu?
The second article in Shukan Shogi was about the events surrounding the third game of the Oza match between Habu and Fujii that was held in China on September 21st. No less than 480 children gathered to challenge Ono (6-dan), Ueyama (6-dan), Kubo (6-dan) and Nozuki (4-dan). The professionals had a really hard time against the kids and lost an unusual high number of games. It was also interesting that there was almost no difference in the level between boys and girls as they are often being taught shogi in school at the same age. Maybe before a Chinese Habu we will see a Chinese Shimizu?
Shimizu wins first in Ladies Oi
Of course, for the time being Shimizu is still at the top of the
women's shogi mountain. Last week she met Usui there in the first
game of the Ladies Oi title. Usui challenged for the second year
in a row, but at the start of the game it did not look like she
would do better this time, as she blundered in the opening to give Shimizu an overwhelming position. However, the young generation does not just roll over and die as Usui fought back hard to get back in the game. She almost succeeded as Shimizu made a couple of mistakes, but in the end Usui missed the chance to win and Shimizu won the game (with a big sigh of relief, I imagine).
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