Yamasaki - new Shinjin-O
Yamasaki is the new Shinjin-O. He should have already finished
Kitahama off in game two, but he let his opponent slip away at
the final moment.
It must be tough to be so close and lose, but
Yamasaki showed remarkable mental strength, showing no signs of being depressed about the missed opportunity. He got black and the third Kakugawari opening in a row gave him a solid middle game advantage. With some fine play with a silver far away from the king that Kitahama had completely overlooked he extended his lead. The silver in the end picked up a vital knight and went all the way to the other side of the board to be exchanged for a defending general. Of the 46 moves Yamasaki played, he played 8 with that devilish silver, including five moves in a row to get to Kitahama's king.
Fine play by Yamasaki that made him the first Shinjin-O from
the Kansai area since Inoue won the title fifteen years ago.
Yamasaki is just 19 years old and only Habu and Moriuchi managed
to win the Shinjin-O title as a teenager. Judging from that company Yamasaki is heading for a brilliant future. There is more evidence for that as exactly half of the former 20 Shinjin-O winners reached the A class and 9 of them have won one or more titles.
One final interesting statistic: Yamasaki's teacher, Mori Nobuo, has also won the Shinjin-O (in 1980). This is the second time as the teacher-pupil combination Wakamatsu-Inoue also won the Shinjin-O in the past (in 1971 and 1985, respectively).
Two leaders in C1 class
In C1 round 7 was played and the number of leaders was cut in half as Sato Shuji lost against Katsumata and Ouchi lost against Yashiki. Especially Ouchi will be disappointed as he missed a chance to show that Yashiki's opening strategy had failed. The two remaining leaders with 5-1 scores are Namekata, who beat Kobayashi, and Horiguchi, who beat Kimura after a gruelling R8e Yokofudori fight that was the last game to finish.
The two leaders are followed by an army of nine players including Yashiki and Nakata Hiroki. Nakata is the only player of this group who did not have his free round yet, so he also has 5 wins (against two losses). I think that Namekata and Horiguchi are two of the strongest players in C1, so I would not be surprised if they both go all the way.
Tanigawa leads convincingly in Osho
Three games were played in the fourth round of the Osho league and it seems that there will not be much suspense this year. Tanigawa scored his fourth consecutive win by beating Kubo in great style, despite a late devilish move by his opponent.
Nakahara seems to be the only player who can catch up with him, as he has only one loss from three games after beating Sato in an aggressive Yokofudori game. Sato fell back to 2-2 and can only hope for a miracle to catch up with Tanigawa. Morishita also helped Tanigawa by getting his first win against Goda,
leaving both players with 1-2 scores. Tanigawa can already clinch the challengership with a win over Nakahara in the fifth round (a game that is being played today, November 24th).
|
|
