by John Power, Japan Correspondent for the American Go E-Journal
Yuki takes Judan Title, Reducing Iyama to Quintuple Crown: Challenger Yuki Satoshi 9P put an end to Iyama Yuta’s reign as a sextuple titleholder on April 26 when he won the final game of the 51st Judan title match, which was played at the headquarters of the Kansai Ki-in. Taking white, Yuki won by 1.5 points after 261 moves to win his second 
top-seven title. Yuki took the lead in the middle game and thereafter, thanks to accurate play, managed to fend off Iyama’s attempts to catch up. Yuki is the fourth Kansai Ki-in player to win the Judan title. He has now won 11 titles, but nine of these are fast-go titles; his only previous top-seven title was the 36th Tengen title, which he won in 2010.
In March, Iyama became the first player ever to hold six of the top-seven titles simultaneously, and there was a lot of speculation about his chances of monopolizing all seven by winning the Meijin title later this year. That prospect has now been ruled out after his reign as a sextuple titleholder ended after just 43 days. To have a second crack at this goal, Iyama will have to hang on to his other titles, then regain the Judan title next year, while also picking up the Meijin title this year or next year.
As with the fourth game, all the interest of the press focused on Iyama at the end of the game, with photographers snapping him, not the winner. The report the next day in the Yomiuri newspaper, for example, featured a photo of Iyama with the headline ‘Iyama reduced to five crowns.’ Yuki probably was philosophical about this; after all, he had the title, and his career had reached a new peak at the ‘advanced’ age, for tournament go, of 41.
Korea Wins Huading Cup After 3-Way Tie: The Huading Tea Industries Cup World Women’s Team Tournament is a tournament for three-player teams from the four East Asian countries with professional go organizations. Last 
year, in the tournament’s first edition. it was dominated by Korea, which didn’t lose a game, but this year China, Korea, and Japan fought their way to a three-way tie, with each country winning two matches and losing one. Last place was filled by Chinese Taipei, which failed to win a match but did pick up an individual win, one more than last year. The first tie-breaker is the number of games won. Japan had five wins, compared to six each for China and Korea, so it took third place. The second tie-breaker is the results of the players on the top board, but here, too, China and Korea were tied, so the organizers had to resort to the third tie-breaker, the results on the second board. Here the Korean player had one more win, so that gave Korea the championship for the second time running. photo: Xie playing Hei (Joanne Missingham) of Chinese Taipei; photo by sina.com
Results:
Round 1 (April 26): Japan 2, Taiwan 1: Xie Yimin (Hsieh I-min) 6P (B) defeated Hei Jiajia (Joanne Missingham) 6P by half a point; Okuda Aya 3P (W) lost to Su Shengfang 2P by resignation; Mukai Chiaki 5P (B) d. Zhang Zhengping 3P by resig.; China 2, Korea 1: Li He 5P (W) d. Pak Chi-eun 9P by 3.5 points; Tang Yi 2P (B) lost to Kim Mi-li 2P by resig; Wang Chenxing 5P (W) d. Kim Ch’ae-yeong 1P by resig.
Round 2 (April 27): Korea 2, Japan 1: Pak (B) d. Xie by resig.; Kim Mi-li (W) d. Okuda by resig.; Kim (B) lost to Mukai by resig.; China 3, Chinese Taipei 0: Li (B) d. Hei by resig.; Tang (W) d. Su by resig.; Wang (B) d. Zhang by resig.
Round 3 (April 28): Japan 2, China 1: Xie (B) d. Li by resig.; Okuda (W) lost to Tang by resig.; Mukai (B) d. Wang by half a point.; Korea 3, Chinese Taipei 0: Pak (W) d. Hei by resig.; Kim Mi-li (B) d. Su by resig.; Kim (W) d. Zhang by resig.
