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Source: Reijer Grimbergen's translated highlights of the week from
the magazine Shukan Shogi, posted to the
Shogi-list.
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in Shogi at all, subscribe at once to the Shogi e-mail list!
You can get information about this at Pieter
Stouten's Shogi pages.
For news about top events,
annotated games and player profiles, there is no better source
in English than Reijer
Grimbergen's site.
Quiet professional week
In the Oza challenger tournament the quarterfinal encounter between Goda
and Fujii was played. Goda tried an unusual opening idea by fighting Fujii's
Shikenbisha with a boat castle and the bishop on 4d instead of 2b. This
was a complete failure and Fujii soon got an overwhelming position.
Normally, Fujii can be trusted in these positions, but this game did not end
without incident. At one point both players overlooked a fork with a rook drop
on both bishops! Goda had a great chance to win a hopeless game, but he
also overlooked this simple move (too simple for a professional?). After this
embarrassing moment the game went normally and Fujii became the first
player to reach the semi-finals of the Oza tournament and is now two wins away
from challenging Habu.
In the red group of the Oi leagues, Nakata Isao had a 2-1 score before
his game with Maruyama (1-2), so he could join leaders Tanigawa and Goda
with a victory. It was a violent game with a very difficult endgame where
Maruyama successfully managed to confuse Nakata in a position where
there were a number of pieces hanging. It took a long time after that before
the game was finished, but in the end Maruyama won. This was his 400th
victory as a pro against only 159 losses, a brilliant winning percentage of
71.6%. The red group is now very clear with one game to play, as leaders Goda
and Tanigawa meet in the final round. The winner of that game will play the
winner of the white group to challenge Habu.
- Reijer Grimbergen
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