On December 17 and 18, the 7th game of 21st Ryuo-sen took place. Watanabe beat Habu in 140 moves and defended Ryuo-title with the score of 4-3. Watanabe lost three games in a row at first, but he overcome the hopeless situation. I think there were several reversals in the endgame, especially I'm quite at a loss why Habu did not take the Gold on 4h with Rx4h at the 107th move which loosens the danger of his King and is threatmating Gote's King by G*2b at the same time. Maybe that happened in the byoyomi of 60 seconds in the endgame of the final game of 4-win match with lots of things at stake. The reversal from 0-3 to 4-3 is the first time in the professional shogi history of title matches. Congratulation on Watanabe. With this victory, he got entitled to be the first Eisei(permanent) Ryuo since he has the title for succesive five years.
The diagram below is the resignation diagram at the 140th move when Watanabe captured the Rook on 2d. Sente's King is in hisshi(brinkmate) while there is no mate for Gote's King.. Here are the possible lines of mate if Sente makes a defensive move after the diagram and continues attacking with shortage of materials. It seems that Watanabe's 126th pawn advancement of P-1d was a decisive move under the pressure of less than 60 seconds per move.
- L*2i N*2f Lx2f R*2h(mate)
- R*2f R*2h(!) Rx2h +Bx2h Kx2h N*3f(!) K-2g R*2h Kx3f R-2e+(mate)
- R*2f R*2h(!) Rx2h +Bx2h Kx2h N*3f(!) Px3f Bx4f K-2g R*2h K-1f R-2e+(mate)
- R*2f R*2h(!) Rx2h +Bx2h Kx2h N*3f(!) K-2g R*2h Kx3f R-2e+(mate)
- R*2f R*2h(!) Rx2h +Bx2h Kx2h N*3f(!) Px3f Bx4f G*3g R*3h K-2i G-3i(mate)
- R*2f R*2h(!) Rx2h +Bx2h Kx2h N*3f(!) Px3f Bx4f L*3g R*3h K-2g Bx3g+ K-1f P-1e(mate)
- R*1b K-4c Rx4b+ Lx4b G*5c K-4d S*4e Nx4e Px4e K-5e S*6f Kx6f S*7g K-6e P*6f K-5f(no more effective check for Setnte)
Comments