Yesterday Habu won the fifth game of 57th Osho-sen 4-wins match with Challenger Kubo 8 dan in 112 moves. Kubo was Sente player. The opening strategy of the game was Kubo's Shikenbisha while Habu chose quick attack advancing his left Silver to 5c. At the 99th move, Habu's King was in Hisshi(brinkmate) and Habu had to checkmate Kubo's King to win. He started to make a check by pawn sacrifice with promotion of P-6i+ at the 100th move. He believed there was mate but the fact is that there was no mate. However, Kubo finally made a mistake at the 109th move of K-7e. If he played K-7f instead, then his King would not have been mated. Habu was surprised to know there was no mate in the most mortem after the game. That means he played as if he was sure he would win the game after the 100th move. I am curious how Kubo felt about Habu's groundless confident attitude of making moves in the endgame.
The diagram below is the resignation one. The possible variations after that position would be as followings;
K-8d Rx8e(mate)
K-7f R-6g+ K-7e +R-6e K-8d +Rx8e(mate)
Gote's King could not help being mated in any cases.
With this victory, Habu defended the Osho title at 4-1.
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