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Power Report: Iyama defends Honinbo title; 42nd Kisei S League; Yamashiro reaches 1,200 wins; Aizu C

by John Power, Japan Correspondent for the E-Journal

Iyama defends Honinbo title: The fourth game of the 72nd Honinbo title match was played at the Sun Great Miyako culture hall in the town of Miyako, Fukuoka Prefecture on June 15 and 16. Taking white, Iyama Yuta (Honinbo Monyu) convincingly outplayed the challenger, Motoki Katsuya 8P, and secured a resignation after 204 moves. Iyama thus won the match 4-0 and defended his title. This is his sixth Honinbo title in a row. Iyama took the lead in the first fight of the game and fended off Motoki’s efforts to catch up. It was a disappointing series for Motoki, who still hasn’t picked up a win over Iyama in any tournament. After the game, Motoki commented; “I felt there was a gap between us. My task now is to try to narrow it as much as I can.” The commentator for the Mainichi Newspaper, Kobayashi Satoru 9P, commented: “This is the best Iyama has playd for several years.” You could say that Motoki was unlucky in running into Iyama in his title-match debut, but then it’s hard not to, with Iyama holding six of the seven big titles. One of the advantages of finishing off the series early for Iyama is that he’ll get extra rest time, though his next big game comes with less than a week’s break: his Gosei defence against Yamashiro Keigo starts on June 22.

42nd Kisei S League: Two games were played in the top Kisei league on June 15. Ichiriki Ryo 7P (B) beat Yamashita Keigo by resig,; Murakawa Daisuke 8P (B) beat So Yokoku 9P by resig. On 2-0, Ichiriki is the only undefeated player. Kono Rin 9P, Yamashita, Murakawa, and Cho U 9P are all on 1-1, and So Yokoku is on 0-2.

Yamashiro reaches 1,200 wins: Yet another player has reached the landmark of 1,200 wins. In a game in Preliminary B of the Ryusei tournament, played on June 12, Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P (formerly of the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in, but now affiliated with the Tokyo headquarters to make it easier to copy with his duties as vice president of the Nihon Ki-in) beat Fukui Masaaki 9P to score his 1,200th win. He has 616 losses and 7 jigos, for a winning percentage of 65.8. He is the eighth player to reach this landmark (four days after Yuki Satoshi); he is 58 years ten months, so it took him 45 years two months.

Aizu Central Hospital final tied: Two games in the best-of-three final of the 4th Aizu Central Hospital Women’s Hollyhock Cup were held in mid-June at the Konjakutei inn in Aizu Wakamatsu City. On June 16, Fujisawa Rina (B) won the first game by resignation, but in the second game, played two days later, Xie Yimin (right) fought back to win by 4.5 points. That makes a third game necessary; it will be played at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo on June 23.

Correction
“Hunglong” in my previous report was a mistake for “Huanglong.” I believe that a fussy spell-checker is responsible, but I should have caught it.