The first semi-final was not so exciting. Haugland had done extremely well to reach the semi-final stage, but he did not cause Nakajima many problems. The scores were:

The first game of the second semi-final was extremely interesting. Shaman, as Black, played an opening line which he had worked out on the plane the night before the tournament with Leader and the French players. They had analysed it up to move 29, leaving what looked like an OK position.

Aoki, who did not know the opening, found the whole sequence to move 29!!! At this stage Shaman had used around 30 seconds, while Aoki had used about 15 minutes. But then Aoki found a really clever sequence on moves 30-34. This put him clearly ahead and he went on to win the game.

In each of the other two games, Aoki, as Black, got a slightly inferior opening position which then just got worse and worse. The scores:

Aoki won the playoff for 3rd place, winning 51-13 against Haugland.