No player to promote yet
The Junisen is always where the hardest fighting is going on, but
this year the promotion races in the different classes are especially tight. Last week the next to final rounds in all classes were finished and at the moment there is no player certain of promotion yet. I can not remember a year where there was no player with a perfect score in any class with one round to play.
Miura in lead
In B1 Goda let his first chance to promote slip away when he lost
against Inoue. He could still have promoted if Fujii would have lost against Kobayashi and for a long time it looked like this would happen. However, Kobayashi missed a win in the endgame and Fujii stayed in the promotion race. For Kobayashi this was extra tough, as Mori beat Takahashi, so Kobayashi is now certain to go down to B2 next year.
Miura, who did not play in this round, is now the leader with 9-2, followed by Goda and Fujii on 8-3. Miura is at the bottom of the class, so he still needs to beat Takahashi in the final round to promote to the A class. Goda plays Nakamura and Fujii has to beat Minami and hope for a mistake by one of the others.
Kubo and Tsukuda with one loss
In B2 Tsukuda recovered from a loss in the 8th round that broke
his winning streak. This loss might have increased the pressure,
as he had a lot of trouble to beat Ariyoshi. In the end he escaped and now has the best chances of promoting back to 8-1. The only other player with one loss is Kubo, whose Junisen game against Hatakeyama was postponed because of the first game of the Kio match. Even if Kubo wins this game, he still needs to win his final game against Nishikawa to promote for the second year in a row.
Abe and Suzuki Daisuke are the other players that still have a chance to promote with 7-2 scores. Abe plays Tosa and Suzuki plays Arimori in the final round. Tsukada (playing 1-8 Tamaru) and Kubo are the clear favourites to clinch promotion.
Kobayashi Hiroshi promotes?
In C2 the number of players with a chance to promote in the final
round is down to seven. Best chances are for Kobayashi Hiroshi, who is the only player with 8-1 after a win against promotion rival Akutsu.
Co-leader Chuza had good chances to promote with one game left to play, but surprisingly lost to Ito Hatasu, who had won only one other game so far. A very painful loss for Chuza, who now drops to 4th place and no longer has his promotion chances in his own hands.
Most likely to promote are Nozuki and Iizuka. Nozuki had a tough game against Matsuo, but won and now has 7-2 and the best Junisen position. Iizuka is only one place behind and I must admit that I hope he makes it as he always seems so close to promotion, failing at the very end on numerous occasions. Other players who still have a chance are Naganuma, the brilliant rookie Watanabe and Masuda. Masuda has only a 6-3 score, so his chances are minimal. Of these players, Nozuki has the toughest opponent as he has to play Watanabe in the final round. Will he be able to keep off the "new Habu"?
Tanigawa to Zen Nihon Pro final
In the Zen Nihon pro tournament Tanigawa reached the finals with
a win over Meijin Maruyama. Tanigawa loves this tournament as he
now will play for his 8th tournament victory against either Sato Yasumitsu or Moriuchi. An interesting match coming up...
Yashiki upsets Sato
Yashiki had a good start in the white group of Oi leagues with a
win over Sato Yasumitsu. He had to dig deep in his ninja resources to pull out the win, as Sato was dominating the game for a long time. Sato was so upset that he lost, that he left immediately without the usual post-mortem analysis.
Nakai fights in Ladies Meijin
Nakai almost defended her Ladies Meijin title thanks to her
husband, professional Ueyama. Two days before the fourth game of the Ladies Meijin match against Saita, Ueyama was surprised by a very interesting new move played by Yamasaki in their C2 Junisen game.
Nakai got the chance to play exactly the same move in her game against Saita. Saita fell for the long term positional trap (Ueyama played it differently) and Nakai got an overwhelming position. However, that was when Saita showed her fighting spirit as she managed to turn around the game in byoyomi and win. So the match is now even at 2-2 and a decisive 5th game is needed to decide the next Ladies Meijin.
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