Australia trip (nyanko)

I travelled to Australia twice when I was an university student.
The first is with my family, and the second is my first solo travel abroad.
I felt Australia is a safety and good place.

     

                         Opera house (Sydney)                Flinders Street station (Melbourne)

In the first trip, we went sightseeing to Brisbane and Sydney, and saw unique animals.

I was surprised at temporary high temperature, 42 degrees at C.

Gold Coast

Animals

There are no casino in Japan, so I went to see it. Japanese often look younger than one is and I was checked of my age when I entered (I showed my passport).

Casino

In the second time, I visited Sydney and Melbourne.
I stayed at dormitory.
Dormitory stay brings us to communicate with roommates and it's funny. I played billiard with roommates.

I felt Melbourne city is kind for travellers.
The staff of information centre is friendly and there are tours at no fee by volunteer.
I joined the tour for Japanese. The tour took us to the place unlisted in guidebook and it was very interesting.

 

                          Information centre                                    Volunteer tour

                              Good view toilet                                         Bank

Furthermore, the Melbourne city tramcar is for free!

The lighting-up is very beautiful.

 

In Australia, there are many sight to be seen and it's be easy to trip because she is English-speaking countries and people are friendly.

Subway Rook (nyanko)

Subway rook, shown in figure. 1, is strategy for attacking edge intensively by Pawn, Lance, Knight, Bishop, Rook.
This is relatively minor, but effective against Mino or Anaguma castle.

figure. 1

The name "subway" derives from the move of Rook from 2i to 9i is just like a railway in underground.

The moving sequence for piece building of Subway Rook is shown below, which is my actual game below. Halfway figures to figure. 1 is also shown.

In this game, the Subway Rook worked well and the opponent became less able to defend against my burst through of edge because my Rook and Bishop reached 9c. Therefore he resigned in Middlegame.

 

Won first prize in shogi tournament 2 (nyanko)

This post is the rest of the post "Won first prize in shogi tournament".

Figure. 1 is one position of this day's game.
My pieces are oppressed and in very bad position.

figure. 1

I became discouraged, but managed to continue the attack, not letting it run out (the real game oroceeded P-5c+, Px5c, P*5f, G-5d, N*5e...).
When you are in bad position in shogi, by doing your best patiently you occasionally have a chance because it's difficult for the opponent to play with no mistake at all.
I had a chance in figure. 2, what do you move in this position?

figure. 2

I moved Bx4d.
After that, +Bx4d, G*4c, +Bx4c, Sx4c (figure 3).
In figure. 3, my attacking piece work well (my Rook came to be able to take Rx4e) and the opponent's castle is broken. I succeeded to turn around and pulled off a victory.

figure. 3

Figure. 4 is the end position of another game.
I mated the opponent's king.
Can you mate the king?

figure. 4

The entire kifu of this game is following. This is my best game in this day.
The answer of mating is included here.

（上側が先手です．）

（下側が後手です．）

Won first prize in shogi tournament (nyanko)

I won first prize in shogi tournament of Omiya shogi centre the other day.
http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~oomiyasc/

In many games, I had a bad position.
But it is necessary to play perseveringly and get results in that bad situation in order to achieve good results. I think this is common in daily life.

figure. 1 tournament table of best 16 (actually, 32 players attended)

Figure. 2 is one position of this day's game.
I was on defencive until this position and the opponent moved R-6e+, fork on Rook and Bishop.
What do you move in the position?

figure. 2

In this position, my own castle is still solid, so it's chance to go on the offencive, without escaping Rook or Bishop.
Therefore, B*3a is technique.
And the game proceeded Gx3a, Bx3a+, Kx3a, R-5a+, S*4a, G*4b (figure. 3).
The opponent's castle becomed thin and I fulfilled the attack after this.

figure. 3

European/World Open Shogi Championship diary (nyanko)

ESC/WOSC (European Shogi Championship and World Open Shogi Championship) is held at once annually.
ESC is limited to European, but WOSC is open to anyone around the world.
I participated WOSC 2012, held in Krakow, Poland.
This event includes many tournaments and had held for four days.

(This picture is sited from http://shogi.pl/finish-of-esc-wosc/)

Teaching game with professional Takada-6 Dan.

I joined team tournament, Blitz, Kyoto shogi tournament and WOSC.
Although I had not know the rule of Kyoto shogi, a player taught me gently on site.
This is also fun.

 

 Kyoto shogi
(sited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_shogi)

I enjoyed shogi and interaction with players.
I won a second prize with team tournament and Kyoto shogi tournament.

 

(Photo: Misako I.Rövekamp)

Second prize cup of Kyoto shogi. I was placed under investigation about this at airport (^^;).

After the games, many players went dinner together. We enjoyed playing shogi there, too.

I went sightseeing around Krakow.
Krakow is a safe place and very beautiful city. (it's like Kyoto for Japan)

In city.

Salt mine (underground).

Auschwitz.

Furthermore, you can see the movie of the event in youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmeaNftTTAo

My hobby is shogi and sightseeing, so I could enjoyed both and had a great experience in this travel.

This year's ESC/WOSC will take place August 20 - 23, 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic.
It must be very fun.
(Information: http://shogi2015.eu/ )

Edge attack by Swinging Rook (nyanko)

Figure. 1 is one position of my actual game with 5-dan player (I'm sente).
What do you move in this position (turn of swinging rook)?

figure. 1

In Figure. 1, the left side of the opponent's camp is guarded by G7b.
So, P-1e is good technique (figure. 2).

figure. 2

Edge attack is standard tactics in shogi.
In many cases, it's practiced by static rook side (for example, when attacking Mino castle).
However, edge attack by swinging rook is occasionally effective when the edge of opponent's camp is unguarded, such as figure. 1.
This is useful to know.

If the opponent will move Px1e, I will move P*1b, then L*1b, R*1a.
This attack is very severe.
From figure. 2, the actual game advanced as P-8f, Px1d, P*1b (figure. 3).
The opponent intend to endure by P*1b, but I had a means for continuing to attack moreover.

figure. 3

I moved P+1c in figure. 3, this is also technique (figure. 4).

 figure. 4

After figure. 4, the actual game is advanced as Px1c, P*1b, L*1b, P*1d, Px1d, R*1a (figure. 5).

 figure. 5

This attack is very sever and it's difficult for gote to defend.
If gote don't defend, the gote's king is mated by beginning with B*2a. And, if gote move K2b, I can take the gold by R+4a.
Additionally, if gote will defend by dropping major piece with B*2a or R2b, I will move P*1c(figure. 6). This is so powerful. In fact, my move Px1d between figure. 4 and figure. 5 is a means for enabling me to move P*1c, and this is technique again.

It's difficult for gote to defend and, in addition, my castle is still so solid.
Therefore the opponent judged as having no chance of winning, so resigned in the position of figure. 5.
The edge attack in the position of figure. 1 was vital.

 figure. 6

As said above, edge attack by swinging rook is occasionally very effective. If you know this, you will have chance to practice this and win someday.

London stay and playing shogi (by nyantaro)

I visited in London a week.
There were many beautiful buildings.

 

 

 

While I stayed, I played shogi with an amateur shogi player in London.

 

 

I played various type of opening strategy in a games.

Opposing Rook, Central Rook, 4th-file Rook, Static rook, and Right-hand 4th-file Rook.

When I played rapid engaging game, I immediately lost.
I have to study rapid engaging game and how to do slow game by myself.

While I played shogi, a passing child saw a game.
If this child take an interest in shogi, I am glad.

I came back in Japan yesterday.
I enjoyed staying in London.