by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal
Sakata and Cho Nam-chul enter Hall of Fame
The Go Hall of Fame committee met on October 8 to choose new players to be elected to the go pantheon. This was the 16th induction and two players were chosen: Sakata Eio (23rd Honinbo Eiju) and Cho Nam-chul 9P, the father of professional go in Korea and the founder of the Korean Baduk Institute (= Ki-in).
Sumire continues to do well
The ten-year-old Nakamura Sumire, the youngest professional ever in modern Japan, continues to enjoy good results. When I submitted my last report, published on October 10, her official record was four wins to two losses. She has now improved that to 12-5, a record that any new professional—seven months have passed since her debut—would be satisfied with. When she was playing—and losing—exhibition games with top players, her elevation to 1-dan may have struck some as premature, but now, competing against members of her peer group, she seems to be in her element. She was, after all, assessed and deemed qualified by top players like Cho U and Kobayashi Satoru, who probably know a thing or two about go talent. Her career is developing rapidly. The number of games you play is one index of your success. The more you win, the more you play: Sumire is now competing at the pace of two games a week. All her games are broadcast on the Nihon Ki-in’s server and usually draw twice as many viewers as other games.
Here are her results since my last report.
On October 10, Sumire lost to Li Xuanhao 7P (B) of China in the first round of the 4th MLily Cup. She had been given a seeded seat as a sponsor’s wild card. One of her groups came under severe attack; she needed to make eye shape, but then she would fall behind in territory, so she gambled and played a big move elsewhere; unfortunately, she was unable to save the group, so she resigned after 149 moves. Sumire is popular overseas and a number of players from other countries played practice games with her. Ko Reibun 7P, the Japanese team captain, reported that in one of these games she played superbly to score a win against Wang Chenxing 5P, one of the top Chinese women players.
On October 17, Sumire played Yamada Shiho 7P in Preliminary C of the 59th Judan tournament (unless otherwise stated, games were played at the Kansai headquarters of the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka). After 341 moves, Sumire (B) won by 26.5 points.
On October 24, Sumire played Takabayashi Masahiro 7P in Preliminary C of the Honinbo tournament. Taking black, she won by resignation after 173 moves. Sumire turned up for this game wearing glasses, as her sight has declined recently.
On October 28, Sumire (B) beat Tamura Chiaki 3P by resig. in the first round of the preliminary tournament for the 7th Women’s Hollyhock Cup. The game was played at the Kansai Ki-in.
On October 31, Sumire played Takagi Junpei 2P (aged 26) in the preliminary round of the 45th Kisei title. Taking white, she won by resignation after 160 moves. Her opponent took the lead in the first fight, but she hung on tenaciously, then played a life-or-death move that secured her an upset win.
On November 4, Sumire (B) lost to Tsukuda Akiko 5P by 5.5 points in the preliminary for the 39th Women’s Honinbo tournament. At home, before the game, Tsukuda’s children said to her: “You have a tough opponent today.” She maintained parental dignity by prevailing in a 300-move struggle.
On November 7, Sumire (B) beat Tanemura Sayuri 2P by resig. in Preliminary C of the 59th Judan tournament. Her opponent played a little slackly in the early fighting and let her take the initiative. This was her tenth official win to four losses. Sumire: “I reached this mark more quickly than I expected.” She qualified for Preliminary B.
On November 11, Sumire (W) beat Takao Mari 1P by resig. in the preliminary of the 45th King of the New Stars title. The game was played at the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in.
On November 14, Sumire (W) beat Udani Shunta 2P by resig. in Preliminary C of the 76th Honinbo tournament. Thanks to a misjudged move by Sumire, Udani took the lead, but late in the game he suffered a hallucination. Sumire picked up a lucky win, but even so Udani commented that she was much stronger—“like a different person”—than when he played her in a study group in May. This was Sumire’s third successive win in Preliminary C, so she qualified for Preliminary B. There she will play Hane Yasumasa 9P, with the winner proceeding to Preliminary A. This game was also her sixth win in a row against male players in official games, a streak which is still alive. (For readers who want to confirm this, the sequence is: Furuta and Yamamoto in my previous report [Oct. 17] and Yamada, Takabayashi, Takagi, and Udani above.
On November 17, the first two rounds of the Young Bamboo (Wakatake) Cup, a tournament open only to players 40 or under at the Kansai branch of the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka, were held. Sumire lost in the first round to Yoshikawa Hajime 3P. Games in this tournament are (presumably) not official, so this result is not counted in her official tally. (Some corrections to my previous report: The Young Carp became an official tournament as of the 6th Cup in 2011, so Sumire’s win and loss count in her official tally. The date of the games was September 23. Also, the game with Yamamoto Kentaro was on October 3, not October 2.)
Ichiriki does well in MLily Cup
The first three rounds of the 4th MLily Cup World Open Championship (“m” is short for “meng,” which means “dream”) were held at the Chinese Qiyuan (= Ki-in) in Beijing from October 10 to 13. Japan had four representatives taking part; of these, three were eliminated in the first round, but Ichiriki Ryo 8P made it to the quarterfinals, scheduled for March next year. This is the first time for two years that a Japanese player has won three or more games in an international tournament; the last time was the 22nd LG Cup, in which Iyama Yuta won four games and reached the final. Nakamura Sumire was given a wild-card seed by the sponsors; this was her debut in an international tournament.
The Chinese-sponsored tournament was a triumph for China: apart from Ichiriki, all the seven quarterfinalists were Chinese. (China did very well in the qualifying tournament held in May and, including its seeded players, had 46 of the 64 seats in the main tournament. Full results are given below:
Round 1 (Oct. 10). Ichiriki (W) beat Yu Zhiying 6P (China) by resig.; Baek Hyunwoo (amateur) (Korea) (W) beat Mutsuura Yuta 7P by 7.5 points; Li Xuanhao 7P (China) (B) beat Nakamura Sumire 1P (Japan) by resig.; Tao Xinran 8P (China) (W) beat Murakawa Daisuke 8P (Japan) by 5.5; Ke Jie 9P (China) (B) beat Wu Guangya 7P (China) by resig.; Xie Ke 7P (China) (B) beat Artem Kachanovskyi 2P (Ukraine) by resig.; Ilya Shikshin 3P (Russia) (B) beat Yi Lingtao 7P (China) by resig.; Meng Tailing 7P (China) (B) beat Liu Zhaozhe 5P (China) by resig.; Wang Wei 4P (China) (W) beat Gu Li 9P (China) by 1.5; Mi Yuting 9P (China) (B) beat Zhou Hongyu 5P (China) by resig.; Yang Dingxin 9P (China) (B) beat Fan Yin 8P (China) by resig.; Xie Erhao 9P (China) (W) beat Zhou Zhenyu (amateur) (China) by resig.; Tan Xiao 9P (China) (W) beat Chen Yaoye 9P (China) by resig.; Lu Liyan 3P (China) (W) beat Wang Zejin 6P (China) by 1.5; Tu Xiaoyu 5P (China) (B) beat Gu Zhihao 9P (China) by 0.5; Tong Mengcheng 8P (China) (B) beat Jiang Weijie 9P (China) by 0.5; Fan Tingyu 9P (China) (W) beat Liao Yuanhe 8P (China) by resig.; Zhao Yan (amateur) (China) (B) beat Li Chengshen 4P (China) by 2.5; Zhang Tao 7P (China) (B) beat Zhen Zijian 7P (China) by resig.; Ding Hao 6P (W) (China) beat Huan Yunsong 7P (China) by resig.; Shin Jinseo 9P (Korea) (B) beat Gu Lingyi 7P (China) by resig.; Park Junghwan 9P (Korea) (B) beat Li Qincheng 9P (China) by resig.; Li Xiangyu 5P (China) (W) beat Jiang Mingjiu 7P (North Am.) by resig.; Kim Jiseok 9P (Korea) (W) beat Andy Liu 1P (North Am.) by resig.; Li Weiqing 7P (China) (W) beat Dang Yifei 9P (China) by resig.; Park Younghoon 9P (Korea) (B) beat Kim Dayoung 3P (Korea) by resig.; Shin Minjun (Korea) (W) beat Peng Liyao 7P (China) by resig.; Byun Sangil 9P (Korea) (B) beat Ma Tianfang (amateur) (China) by resig.; He Yuhan 6P (China) (W) beat Tong Yulin 4P (China) by resig.; Wang Yuanjun 9P (Chinese Taipei) (W) beat Oh Yujin 6P (Korea) by resig.; Xu Jiayang 8P (China) (B) beat Yang Yi 5P (China) by resig.; Shi Yue 9P (China) (B) beat Chen Yusen 5P (China) by resig.
Round 2 (Oct. 11). Ichiriki (W) beat Lu by resig.; Xie Erhao (W) beat Tan by 0.5; Meng (B) beat Li by resig.; Ke (W) beat Shi by resig.; Xie Ke (W) beat Yang by resig.; Xu (B) beat Wang Yuanjun by resig.; Mi (B) beat Tao by resig.; Baek (B) beat Shikshin by resig. (thanks to winning two games, Baek qualified as a pro in Korea); Byun (W) beat He by resig.; Tong (B) beat Tu by resig.; Park Yonghoon (W) beat Shin Minseo by resig.; Ding (B) beat Shin Jinseo by resig.; Park Junghwan (B) beat Li by resig.; Fan (B) beat Zhao by 4.5; Kim beat Li by resig.; Wang Wei (W) beat Zhang by resig.
Round 3 (all results by resig.) (October 12) Ichiriki (B) beat Ding; Mi (W) beat Byun; Xu (B) beat Tong. (October 13) Xie Ke (W) beat Paek; Meng (B) beat Park Yonghoon; Xie Erhao (W) beat Kim; Fan (W) beat Wang; Ke (W) beat Park Junghwan.
Quarterfinal pairings: Mi vs. Xie Erhao, Ichiriki vs. Xie Ke, Ke vs. Fan, Xu vs. Meng
Tomorrow: New Honinbo League; Kyo leads in Tengen; Korea repeats in Gratitude Cup
