2nd Game of the 57 Ouza Title Match

http://live3.shogi.or.jp/ouza/kifu-en/20090916-en.html

Takodori is translating all the comments in English. If you didn't know about it already, be sure to check it out.

Habu won the game. At some point there were thoughts yamasaki was winning, habu performed his habu-magic and took the second game, however

I think when Habu took S with P instead of B was the point of his victory.

So in the end, Yamasaki's failure to castle did lose the game for him... Such a simple mistake, I would not have predicted to see it in a title match!

hirohiigo wrote:So in the end, Yamasaki's failure to castle did lose the game for him... Such a simple mistake, I would not have predicted to see it in a title match!

well he had problems with tempo at the beginning of the game, so he just didn't have enough time. There were some good castling lines however. If he would play P*2c instead of G2c, and also earlier, there was a possibility to castle among those strong generals on the bishop side. I would say it was G2c, which brought his king to uncomfortable position, it just let the king "naked"

In most of the variations that were given Sente came out to be the stronger. In the same situation he was in most of us (all of us?) would've panicked over our rook being trapped. This is an opportunity to learn from this game.

As usual, Habu didn't care about losing material. Breaking through Gote's lines was the only thing he cared about. So all his moves were threats to force a breakthrough and if he was successful Gote's king would be over as HIDETCHI says.

Habu certainly brings out his best in Ouza.

Lukas1 wrote:

hirohiigo wrote:So in the end, Yamasaki's failure to castle did lose the game for him... Such a simple mistake, I would not have predicted to see it in a title match!

well he had problems with tempo at the beginning of the game, so he just didn't have enough time. There were some good castling lines however. If he would play P*2c instead of G2c, and also earlier, there was a possibility to castle among those strong generals on the bishop side. I would say it was G2c, which brought his king to uncomfortable position, it just let the king "naked"

His lack of time in that situation was a direct result of his failure to castle properly. After moving his gold to 2c, he pretty much had no other option but to go on the offensive. On the other hand, had he played P*2c, he would have enough time to let his king get over to the generals.

Although I also believe Righthand King would have been a better decision oh his part. It wouldn't take that many moves to develop, and it would have given him some time to breathe before Habu's next attack.