Dear shogi friends,

Stockholm Open 2001 produced a new record with 24 participants (13 Swedes, 7 Japanese, and 4 Norwegians). However, less Swedes participated this year than in 1998, when we had 20 participants, among whom 16 were Swedes. Still, as expected, the Swedes continue to improve, and we will soon have a few more dan players than our present three.

This year, the tournament had seven participants from ISPS in Japan. We also had the honour to welcome the professional Sa-Eki-sensei. The Japanese had visited Göteborg before the tournament, and I brought them to the northenmost Swedish city Kiruna after the tournament (I write a part of this report from the Kiruna library after the Japanese have gone back to Japan). Among other things, we have presented shogi at a school here in Kiruna. The support from ISPS to the Swedish Shogi Federation is greatly acknowledged.

The main impression of inviting a group of rather strong Japanese amateurs to a western shogi tournament is positive. The tournament games against the Japanese became very instructive, especially with post-mortem analyses supported by a professional. I am sure that all the Nordic players took great advantage of that possibility.

It is also clear that the Japanese had a real playing strength at the level of their grades. The games they lost against the Swedish players were against players who are underrated both by means of ELO points and grades.

One also has to take the cultural differences into consideration. It is necessary to understand their background and experiences in order to explain their behaviour. Most Japanese tournaments use a knock-out or Berger system, and thus they are not used to play with a Swiss system. In our case that led three of the Japanese to withdraw from the tournament after three rounds, since they wanted to do some Stockholm sight-seeing.

Those were three of the players who had one point out of three, and of course to them it meant that they could no longer win the tournament. In reality, players from Japan and Europe also play with slightly different pre-conditions, since the Japanese do not have an ELO system.

The lucky (he made an illegal move in his last round game that was only observed by the spectators) winner of Stockholm Open 2001 was Thore Ångqvist. He has improved continuously during the last years, and he well deserved to win the tournament.

He was followed by the other two players with five points, Kohji Hosokawa and Toshio Inui. The only player with four points after four rounds, Takuya Shimizu, took the fourth place after finishing with two losses. Terje Christoffersen was the best Norwegian in fifth place with four points, and he was followed by the previous two-time winner of the Stockholm Open, Carl Johan Nilsson. Jan Palmgren surprisingly also scored four points as well as Yoshihisa Suzuki.

The first prize was 1200 SEK, and Hosokawa-san and Inui-san generously gave their money prizes to the Swedish Shogi Federation. There were also plenty of shogi book and calendar prizes which we had received from our Japanese friends. Tord Juntti won Tony Hosking's latest book "Habu's words" in a lottery among those present at the prize giving ceremony.

Result table, Stockholm Open 2001

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Martin Danerud
President of the Swedish Shogi Federation