Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

Result of 5th game of 19th Ryuoh-sen, Watanabe led the score by 3-2

On December 6 & 7, the 5th game of Ryuoh-sen between Ryuoh Watanabe and challenger Kisei Sato was held in Shiga prefecture. Here is the link to the photo page before the game(Left=Sato).Sato made a first move(was Sente) and Watanabe won it with 146 moves. The score after the game is 3-2 led by Watanabe. Since Ryuoh-sen is four wins match, Watanabe needs one more victory to defend the title.

You may replay the game here with comments in Japanese(Java-capable browser needed). The game was a very difficult and close game like the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ones. Sato looked to lead the position at 100th move but finally Watanabe turned around it somewhere later. 

Here is the diagram when Sato resigned at Watanabe's 146th move of S*9c. After the diagram, Sente(Black, Lower side of the diagram)'s King would be mated. The possible variations are found below the diagram.

Kx9c N-8e(!) K-9h G*9g Nx9g B*8i K-8h S-7g=(mate, S-7g+ or N-7g+ would give mate as well. This line is replayable in the diagram clicking the arrow in the right direction.)

Kx9c N-8e(!) K-8h B*7i Kx7h(or K-9h) G*8h(mate)

Kx9c N-8e(!) Gx8e G*8g(mate)

Nx9c B*8i K-8h G*7g(mate)

The sixth game will be held on December 13 and 14 in Tendo city of Yamagata prefecture, Japan.

Article about Shogi in Wikipedia was updated on Dec. 1

The following part you can see through the linked page below was added to the article about Shogi in Wikipedia(English version) on December 1.

Difference between revisions

As you see there, the added part mentions to Mino Gakoi. I'm creating a diagram which shows Mino Gakoi below.

Rikaichan - a popup Japanese-English/German/French/Russian dictionary

According to Daniel's post to shogi-l mailing list, Rikaichan is very useful when you read pages related to shogi written in Japanese on Internet. I think Daniel's mother tongue is German.

BTW, in order to read japanese sites I found very helpful a little
extension for Firefox called Rikaichan. With this, your mouse cursor
shows direct translation, much better then normal online translation. In
particular, shogi terms are given.

And here is Fabien's reply. He is a French shogi fan..

Thanks a lot for the tip Daniel! Quite helpful indeed.

Why don't you enjoy the free state-of-the-art tool as these two guys?

Firefox means Mozilla Firefox which is a free web-browser. You can download it through Mozilla's page.

For more details about Rikaichan, please refer to the page of polarcloud.com. Your Firefox browser can be equipped with Rikaichan through the page.

Result of 4th game of 19th Ryuoh-sen, Watanabe got the score tied

On November 29 & 30, the 4th game of the 19th Ryuoh-sen between Ryuoh Watanabe and Kisei Sato was held in Aichi prefecture, Japan. Watanabe was a Sente player(made a first move). Watanabe won it with 97 moves and got the score tied by 2-2. Since Ryuoh title match is 4-wins match, next game will be very important to win the match. The diagram below is the resignation diagram when Watanabe dropped his Silver on 6c to threatmating Sato's King.

After the resignation diagram,  there would be the following variations. In any case, it would end with Sente's victory.

G7d-7c Sx7b+ Gx7b S*7c S*7a +Rx7b(!) Sx7b G*8b(mate, This is the line clicking the arrow in the right direction under the resignation diagram)

G7d-7c Sx7b+ Gx7b S*7c Gx7c G*8b(mate)

S*7a Sx7b= Sx7b S*8c S*7a +Rx7b(!) Sx7b G*8b(mate)

G-8b S*8c(!) Gx8c ;R-7b(mate)

G-8b S*8c(!) S*7a +Rx8b Sx8b S6c-7b+(mate)

The full gamerecord using Kifu for Java V2.23 is available to replay at Ryuoh-sen Chukei Banmen. You may read and download the kifu data and commentary in Japanese there.

The 5th game will be held on December 6 & 7 in a quality inn beside the lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture.

(The diagram is created by the standalone version of kif2swf. Thanks a lot to the excellent program creator, Oujiminami-san)