by John Power, special Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Iyama wins first Judan game: The Judan best-of-five got off to a start on March 6. It was played at the same venue as the Women’s Meijin game, as detailed above. These two titles share a sponsor, the Sankei Nerwspaper, and it has been the practice in recent years to link them in this way. The challenger is Murakawa Daisuke 8P, who has been the top young player at the Kansai Ki-in for some time now. This is his fourth title match with Iyama. His first challenge was the only successful one: he scored 3-2 and took the 62nd Oza title from Iyama in 2014, but the following year he lost it to him 0-3. He also lost the 41st Gosei title match to Iyama by the same margin in 2016. This is the reverse of the usual pattern, in which a young player fails in his first challenge but does better later. 
Murakawa’s record so far against Iyama is three wins to 14 losses: his only wins have come in their first title-match clash.
In the first Judan game, Murakawa drew black in the nigiri. The tenor of the game was set quite early when Iyama played a cleverly timed sequence that turned an earlier move of his into an efficient forcing move. After that, the game developed peacefully for a while, but that was misleading; in the end, it turned into a capturing race between two large groups. This was won by Iyama, so Murakawa had to resign after 156 moves. The second game will be played on March 22.
73rd Honinbo League: The Honinbo League is one round and one game away from finishing. As before, Ida Atsushi 8P has the provisional lead, but he hasn’t yet played his sixth-round game against Yamashita Keigo 9P. Motoki is on 4-1. Yamashita on 3-2, and Ko Iso 8P on 4-2. One of these three will be the challenger. Results of recent games are listed below.
(March 1) Ko Iso 8P (B) beat Shibano Toramaru 7P by resig.
(March 8) Motoki Katsuya 8P (B) beat Yo Seiki 7P by resig.; Kobayashi Satoru 9P (B) beat Hane Naoki 9P by resig.
43rd Meijin League: After four rounds of the league, two players share the lead: Cho U 9P and Shibano Toramaru 7P. both 2-0 (both have already had their byes). Recent results:
(March 1) Hane Naoki 9P (W) beat Yamashita Keigo 9P by resig.; Cho U 9P (W) beat Murakawa Daisuke 8P by resig.
(March 8) Kono Rin 8P (B) beat Takao Shinji 9P by resig.
(March 15) Shibano beat Yo Seiki (don’t have details yet).
Promotion
To 3-dan: Tanimiya Ayako (40 wins; as of Feb. 27). Tanimiya earned her promotion after 37 years as 2-dan.
