American Go E-Journal » Japan

by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal

Ichiriki’s perfect record in Meijin League
The final round of the 46th Meijin league was held on August 6. There was no suspense at the top of the league, as Ichiriki had taken an unbeatable lead of 7-0 in the previous round, but at the other end there were issues of demotion still to be decided. Kyo Kagen, Hane Naoki, Yamashita Keigo, and Shibano Toramaru were sure of their places. Yo Seiki, who had a bye in the last round, was the only player sure of dropping out. That meant that out of Kono Rin, Motoki Katsuya, and Anzai Nobuaki, two would have to drop out. Complete results for the final round follow:
Ichiriki Ryo Tengen (W) beat Yamashita Keigo 9P by resig.
Kyo Kagen Judan (W) beat Kono Rin 9P by half a point.
Motoki Katsuya (W) beat Hane Naoki 9P by resig.
Anzai Nobuaki 9P (B) beat Shibano Toramaru Oza by resig.

The position became simplified when Motoki won his game. He improved his score to 4-4 and took 5th place. Anzai needed not just to win but also to have Motoki (and Kono) lose, in which case there would be a play-off with Motoki for the sixth seat. This happens only when the players have the same rank, so this rule applies only to the three newcomers to the league, who are all ranked 7th. That’s why Anzai didn’t get a play-off with Shibano, although they finished on the same score. Shibano’s luck in keeping his place with a 3-5 score is indicative of how the Meijin League favors the status quo. In the Honinbo League, a score of 4-3 is sometimes not enough to keep your place. Incidentally, Kono is enduring one of the worst slumps of his career, the loss above being his 11th in a row. This was his 10th Meijin League in a row and the first time he lost his seat.

Ueno makes King of the New Stars final
On August 9, Ueno Asami, Women’s Kisei, (W) beat Nishi Takenobu 5P in the semifinal of the 46th King of the New Stars tournament by 4.5 points. This made her the second woman player to make the final. The first was Aoki Kikuyo 8P (then 7P) in the 22nd title. The other finalist is Sotoyanagi Sebun 3P; the best-of-three starts on September 20.

Iyama wins Gosei, once again
The fourth game of the 46th Gosei title match was held at the Niigata Grand Hotel in Niigata City on August 17. Taking white, Iyama Yuta won by resignation after 198 moves and so survived a kadoban. He played quite aggressively and did not seem to fall behind at any stage. The highlights of the game were two brilliancies played by Iyama. One was a surprising move adding a stone to three captured white stones, but giving White leverage that he used in his second brilliancy. Incidentally, the referee for this game was Cho U. Aged 41, Cho was making his debut in this role. He was also the referee for the first game in the Meijin title match (see below). It’s a little unusual to choose as referees players who are still competing at the top. Cho is slated to play Iyama in the semifinal of the 69th Oza tournament; if he won that game, he would meet Ichiriki in the final to decide the challenger. (As it happened, Iyama beat Cho.) Actually, it’s not just Cho. The other three members of the group popularly called “the top four of the Heisei (1989-2019) era,” that is, Takao Shinji, Hane Naoki, and Yamashita Keigo, are also serving as referees for the Meijin title match.
The fifth game was held at the Nihon Ki-in headquarters in Tokyo on August 29. Iyama drew white in the nigiri and continued where he left off in the fourth game. He took the edge in the middle game, so Ichiriki felt that he had to stake the game on attacking a large white group. When this attack failed, he resigned. The game lasted 180 moves.
Iyama regained the title that he had held for six years in a row (2012‾2017: 37th to 42nd). He lost it to Kyo Kagen in 2018, who lost it to Hane Naoki in 2019, who lost it to Ichiriki Ryo in 2020. Perhaps a new dynasty will start. Iyama once again becomes a quadruple title holder. This is his 65th title, so he moves ahead of Sakata Eio into sole second place on the all-time list:.
Most titles won
1. Cho Chikun: 75
2. Iyama Yuta: 65
3. Sakata Eio: 64
4. Kobayashi Koichi: 60
5. Otake Hideo: 48
6. Kato Masao: 47
7. Cho U: 41
8. Yoda Norimoto: 36
9. Rin Kaiho: 35
10. Xie Yimin: 27

by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal

Promotions
To 8-dan: Uchida Shuhei (150 wins; as of July 30)
To 7-dan (120 wins): Minematsu Masaki (as of July 6), Kato Yuki (as of July 9)
To 4-dan (50 wins): Takahashi Masumi (as of July 6); Otani Naoki (as of July 16); Seki Kotaro (as of July 27)

Retirement: Kanagawa Masaki
Born in Kanagawa Prefecture on June 26, 1955, Kanagawa was a disciple of Abe Yoshiteru 9P. He became 1-dan in 1975 and reached 8-dan in 2017. He retired on July 31 and was promoted to 9-dan. He took second place in the 2-dan, the 4-dan, and the 5-dan section of the Kisei tournament in 1976, 1979, and 1983 respectively.

Obituary: Harada Minoru
Harada Minoru died of a heart attack on July 10, aged 85. In his prime, he was one of the top amateur players in Japan while also pursuing a business career at Hitachi Manufacturing. He won the Amateur Honinbo tournament seven times, the Amateur Best Ten four times, and various other amateur titles. He was known as one of the “Top Four” amateurs, along with Kikuchi Yasuro, Hirata Hironori, and Murakami Bunsho. They monopolized the amateur titles and could all have been successful as professional players if they had wanted to, but perhaps they might not have become so well known.

by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal

Sumire suffers setbacks but recovers
   As reported on June 4, Nakamura Sumire saw her winning streak come to an end and in fact suffered successive losses to two 9-dans. Although she won what was her third successive game against a 9-dan, she then lost four games in a row, the worst losing streak of her career so far. However, she is now balancing losses with wins, including her first win in an international tournament against a formidable opponent.

(June 3) Sumire (W) beat Nakane Naoyuki 9p by 1.5 points Prelim. B, 60th Judan tournament).
(June 4) Sumire beat Iwasaki Seito (2 stones) by 4. This was an unofficial game. Iwasaki is blind in his right eye and has 0.01 vision in his left eye. With the cooperation of the Nihon Ki-in, he has become an insei. He started out in April in D Class, but quickly moved up to C Class. He attends a school for the blind, and, like Sumire, is in the first year of middle school. He plays on a board, called “aigo,” adapted for use by players with vision disabilities. A 2-hour commentary (in Japanese) on the game can be found here.

(June 10) Sumire lost to Takeshita Ryoya 1p (Prelim. B, 47th Gosei).
(June 15) Sumire (W) lost to Nyu Eiko 3p by 6.5 points (semifinal, 8th Hollyhock Cup?see article above). Reaching the final four is Sumire’s best result in a tournament so far. 
(July 1) Sumire (B) lost to Shuto Shun 8p by 1.5 (46th Kisei, C League).
(July 5) Sumire (W) lost to Koyama Terumi 6p by 3.5 (Round 2, main tournament, 40th Women’s Honinbo.) This was her fourth loss in a row.
(July 8) Sumire (W) beat Ueno Risa 1p by resig. (Round 1, main tournament, 6^th Senko Cup). This was her first win in an official game for five weeks. 
(July 15). Sumire (B) beat Muramoto Wataru 3p by resig. (Prelim. A, 60th Judan. This game was played at the Kansai headquarters of the Nihon Ki-in.)
(July 18) Sumire (W) beat Kim Jaeyoung 6p (Korea) by half a point. (Sumire was given a sponsor’s wild-card seed in the 4th Wu Qingyuan [Go Seigen] Cup; see report above. Kim won this tournament in its first year, so this is an excellent result for Sumire and her first international win.)
(July 19) Sumire (W) lost to Zhou Hongyu 6p (China) by resig. (Round 2 of tournament above.)
(July 22) Sumire (B) beat Endo Yoshifumi 8p by 2.5 (Prelim. C, 70th Oza.)
(July 29) Sumire (W) lost to Iyama Yuta Kisei in round one of the New Ryusei tournament. This is an unofficial tournament, presumably because of its very short time allowance. Players start with one minute and get an extra five seconds every time they play a move (a system known as Fischer time, after its inventor Bobby Fischer). There are 32 participants in a knock-out; Sumire was chosen as one of two special seeds. After the game, she commented that she was “cut to pieces.” (The above information comes from the Net. The Nihon Ki-in is withholding news of the result until the game is televised on August 28.)
(August 2) Sumire beat Antti Tormanen 1p (Prelim. C, Tengen) (details not yet available).   
Sumire still has the second-most wins of all Nihon Ki-in pros but no longer the best winning percentage; see below. However, I have a problem. Go Weekly (and the Nihon Ki-in HP) gave her score as 29-8 as of July 16, compared to 26-8 as of July 9, but I can find only one result, listed above, for that week. A Net site that tracks her results didn’t have the two “missing” games either.

Most wins (as of July 31)
1. Ueno Asami, Women’s Kisei: 35-13
2. Nakamura Sumire: 31-10 (75.6%) (note that the last two games given above are not included)
3. Fukuoka Kotaro 2p: 27-4 (86.6%). Fukuoka was on a winning streak that stopped at 13, so he is level with Sumire for the best winning streak so far this year.
4. Fujisawa Rina: 23-10; Motoki Katsuya 8p: 23-11; Kyo Kagen Judan: 23-12; Nyu Eiko 3p: 23-28. Tsuneishi Takashi 4p: 22-2 (at 91.6%, the best winning percentage); Ichiriki Ryo Tengen: 22-5 (his 12-game winning streak stopped a few weeks earlier); Seki Kotaro 4p: 22-7.
   At present, there are four women players in the top ten.

Best winning streak
11: Tsuneishi Takashi
9: Otake Yu. Sumire’s father, Shinya 9P, briefly entered the list with 5-in-a-row, but was unable to keep his streak going.

by John Power, Japan correspondent for the E-Journal

Ichiriki takes lead in Gosei title match
   Iyama Yuta became the challenger for the 46th Gosei title, held by Ichiriki Ryo, on May 6 when he beat Ida Atsushi 8p in the play-off (Iyama had black and forced a resignation). Iyama won this title six terms in a row, from the 37th (2012) to the 42nd (2017). He lost it to Kyo Kagen in 2018, who lost it to Hane Naoki in 2019, who lost it to Ichiriki in 2020. Perhaps Iyama thinks it’s time to bring some stability back to the title. Be that as it may, he made a good start to the title match, winning the first game, which was played on June 26. Iyama had black and forced Ichiriki to resign after 135 moves. The venue was the Mabi Contact Center, a kind of community hall, in Mabi Town, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture. This town was subjected to extensive flooding in July 2018, with a lot of damage to the area. It has taken three years to fix the damage; the Gosei game was one of the events held to commemorate the reopening of the center.
   Ichiriki also had his pride on the line, as his family newspaper, the Kahoku Newspaper, is one of the sponsors of the tournament, and his hometown was the venue for the second game in his hometown. It was played at the Hotel Sakanin Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, on July 12. Taking black, Ichiriki won by half a point after 242 moves. (For some information on the Ichiriki family newspaper, see my report of April 11, 2020.)
   The third game was played in the Hokkoku (North Country) Newspaper Hall in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, on July 19. This newspaper is another of the sponsors of the tournament. Ichiriki (W) played positively and attacked strongly; Iyama had to resign after just 138 moves when he lost a group. Ichiriki is now well placed to defend his title, but there is a bit of a gap until the next game, which is scheduled for August 17.

Ichiriki wins Meijin League
   Ichiriki Ryo won his eighth-round game in the 46th Meijin League while his closest rival, Kyo Kagen, lost his, so the former won the league with a round to spare. This will be Ichiriki’s second challenge for a top-three title: he lost the 42nd Kisei title match to Iyama 0-4. The best-of-seven will start on August 26. Results since my previous report follow.

(June 7) Ichiriki Ryo Tengen (B) beat Hane Naoki 9p by resig.
(June 10) Kyo Kagen Judan (W) beat Yamashita Keigo 9p by 4.5.
(June 14) Motoki Katsuya 8p (W) beat Kono Rin by resig.
(June 17) Shibano Toramaru Oza (W) beat Yo Seiki 8p by 3.5.
(July 1) Ichiriki (B) beat Kono by half a point.
(July 5) Anzai Nobuaki 7p (B) beat Yo Seiki by 5.5.
(July 8) Hane (W) beat Kyo by resig. (This win made sure of Hane’s seat in the 47th league.)
(July 15) Yamashita (W) beat Motoki by resig. (This win made sure of Yamashita’s seat in the next league.)