Vital game in Junisen A class
In the A class Junisen only one game was played last week, but it
was a vital game for both players. Shima and Tanaka are both fighting relegation. Shima is actually bottom of the league with 1-4 and another loss would make things extremely difficult for him. On the other hand, Tanaka could get to relatively safe territory with a win that would get him back to 3-3. A loss, however, would put him in a relegation place as well.
Tanaka's nickname is "Opening Edison" as he keeps
inventing new opening strategies all the time. Against Shima he also surprised everyone with an interesting opening experiment in the Yagura.
Unfortunately for him, he overlooked a very strange looking silver drop ("I thought: What the hell is that?" (Tanaka) ) that turned out to be very strong. If you play a very sharp opening, it can blow up in your face and that is what happened to Tanaka, who lost in only 62 moves.
Shima is far from safe, but his situation is no longer hopeless. With games against relegation rivals Kato and Shima still to play, he has his A class spot in his own hands.
Goda, Kubo or Maruyama?
In the Kio-sen the challenger tournament is almost finished. There are only three players left with a chance to challenge Habu: Goda, Kubo and Maruyama.
Goda had a lucky escape against Kubo in the winner's
section of the tournament and reached the final there. Kubo thought he had calculated the endgame until the end, but a small oversight turned out to be the difference between winning and losing. Kubo now has to try his luck in the second chance round, where he will meet Maruyama to have another shot at Goda.
Maruyama's results have not been impressive since he became Meijin, but he showed that he is on the way back with a victory over Tanigawa. It looked like he would win smoothly as he got a solid advantage early on. However, when he tried to strangle his opponent (as is his style), he could not quite make it work and in the end Tanigawa got a chance to win. However, in a complex endgame position Tanigawa made a mistake and lost quickly after that.
The winner of the game between Maruyama and
Kubo has to beat Goda two times in a row to become Kio challenger.
Tanigawa starts well in Kisei
Tanigawa had a good start in the Kisei leagues with a win over
Ariyoshi. For veteran Ariyoshi it is already an outstanding achievement that he survived the preliminary rounds to get this far, but in a group with Tanigawa, Fujii and Hatakeyama, his chances to advance to the final eight are very slim. He did not have much chance against Tanigawa and now needs to win his next game to stay in the tournament.
|
|
