On 31st July, second qualifying round of the 73rd ALSOK Cup Osho Tournamentat was held in the Osaka Kansai Shogi Hall, and Yuki Sasaki (8-dan, 28 years old) won against Tetsuro Itotani (8-dan, 34 years old) in 130 moves. In the next round, Sasaki will compete against Akira Inaba (8-dan, 34 years old) for a chance to enroll the challenger deciding league.
The result of the Furigoma determined that Itani played first, and the game progressed to the “Gangi” opening. Up to move 46, the game followed a similar development to Itotani‘s previous match with Takahiro Ohashiro (7-dan, 30 years old) in the B-1 class ranking match. Sasaki started his counterattack from move 68 with the pawn advance to 9f, and he didn’t back down from capturing Itotani’s rook on 6f with his own rook on 8f. Additionally, on move 84, he effectively used his rook by attacking Itotani‘s poor-performing pieces with the bishop move to 4b, and later with the bishop move to 6d on the 86th move.
Regarding the “Gangi” opening, Sasaki mentioned, “I haven’t studied it deeply, and I thought I made some mistakes little by little. I want to improve my preparation.” However, despite this being his first participation in the A Class ranking match, where he competes for the Master challenge, and defeating Itani, who had participated in the league for 7 periods in the Osho Tournament, Sasaki also gained attention by challenging Fujii in the Kisei and Osho Tournaments this summer. Sasaki shares the same surname with Sasaki Daichi (7-dan, 28 years old), known for stopping Fujii’s 29-game winning streak since his debut in 2017, and he also didn’t lose in this match.
On the other hand, Itotani missed his chance to enter the league, having advanced to the league except for the 65th to 70th periods until this season’s opening match. He said, “I thought I was winning and made moves accordingly, but it turned out I wasn’t. I realized it was a losing move after playing it. Then, my plans had to change completely. I was thinking too much about different things.” He reflected on his decisions leading to the variation up to move 107, where the rook moved to 7d to promote.
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