By Keith L. Arnold, hka, with Patrick Bannister
The month began with the 3rd International Tournament taking place in New York on September 2. Unfortunately, we cannot recover any further details on this fun team event.
On September 3-4 the Hawai’i Ki’in celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a visit from the Great Kitani, his wife, his daughter Reiko, as well as Ishida Yoshio, Takemiya Masaki and Haruyama Isamu. More than 40 were in attendance.
Also this month the Argentine Championship was won by a Mr. Hara, over 100 players participated.
Beginning on September 5-6 the Meijin Title continued. Rin Meijin won Game 3, and Game 4 on September 14-15 putting challenger Fujisawa Shūkō‘s back to the wall. But in Game 5, Shūkō extended the match on September 26-27. (Game records: Game 3, Game 4, Game 5).
On September 9th, Katō Masao defeated defending champion Sakata Eio in the first round of the 20th NHK Championship. (Game record available here.)
Finally, Stuart Dowsey reported extensively on the Japanese Tour of America (the term used advisedly because it included visits to Canada). The month started in New York on September 1 and then went to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Northfield, Edmonton and Seattle (the West Coast swing will be covered in our next column). The tour group consisted of Dowsey, Okubō Ichigen 9d and Nagahara Yoshiaki 6d (who wrote several the early Ishi Press books and attended one U.S. Go Congress). The New York Go Club was located on West 10th St. in the basement of the Marshall Chess Club. Mitsuo Horiguchi was the long standing President of the club which was open daily. Dowsey praises Vice President John Stephenson for various initiatives regarding membership and teaching. More evidence of Stephenson’s efforts are contained in the “Go Digest” pictured, which covered the visit by the two professionals. Brief mentions were made of Robert Ryder’s Bell Lab Go Club, Bill Mann’s Massachusetts Go Association, Walter Reitman‘s work at in Ann Arbor on computers and go, with James Kerwin on his team and Craig Hutchinson teaching go to cadets at West Point. Of particular interest to your correspondent was the visit to Baltimore, where Bob Gross knew of only two other players in town and a few others in Annapolis. But when over 300 people turned out for the two day visit, the pros left behind a thriving Gilbert W. Rosenthal Memorial Go Club, which, at least started out with 70 people turning out to sessions at Johns Hopkins. It seems current President and your author needs to work on increasing membership…
Dowsey reports that activity in Canada was centered on Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton but activity was increasing, from one club 5 years ago to at least 13, and the recent formation of the Canadian Go Association led by first President John Williams. Dowsey estimated the Japanese tour addressed 600 players in Canada.
Overall, the group visited 19 clubs and 17 universities and reached 4,500 people, over half of whom were taught how to play. We would love to hear from anyone who learned the game from this very successful effort.
Photos from GoReview, game records from SmartGoOne
