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China dominates 2nd Go Seigen Cup

    The preliminary tournament and Rounds 1 to 3 of the 2nd Go Seigen Cup World Women’s Go Championship were held in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China, from April 26 to 29. Reaching the best four were three Chinese players and one Korean. Ueno Asami 2P from Japan made it to the third round, but there she was beaten by Rui Naiwei. The latter took revenge on Ueno for her loss to her in this tournament last year. In that game, Ueno captured a large group; this time Rui returned the courtesy. A tournament for AI programs was held at the same time and was won by the program Golaxy. An exhibition match was held, with the top four in the human tournament playing Golaxy on two stones. The program won all these games. The remaining two rounds will be played in November.

Hane to challenge for Gosei title

    The play-off to decide the challenger for the 44th Gosei title was held at the Central Japan (Nagoya) branch of the Nihon Ki-in on May 9. It featured a clash between Hane Naoki 9P, one of the stars of the second half of the Heisei era (1989~2019) and Ichiriki Ryo 8P, one of the top players of the post-Iyama generation. The game was decided by a large ko fight, during the course of which the position tilted from Ichiriki in favor of Hane. The latter, taking black, won by resignation after 261 moves. The titleholder is Kyo Kagen, so this will be the first top-seven title match for quite a while not to feature Iyama Yuta. (To be precise, the last was the 53rd Judan title match between Takao Shinji and Ida Atsushi in 2015, which is 30 matches ago.) Hane’s last top-seven title was the 36th Gosei title in 2011 and his last top-seven title match was the 2012 Meijin. The match will get off to a start on June 30.
Incidentally, Hane’s daughter Ayaka made her professional debut on May 6、so three generations of the Hane family are now in action. Her grandfather is Hane Yasumasa 9P. There are other examples of three generations of professionals in a family (the most notable being Kitani Minoru, his daughter Kitani/Kobayashi Reiko, and Kobayashi Izumi), but this is the first time all three generations have been active at the same. (Unfortunately, Ayaka lost her first game.)

Korea wins Tiantai Mountain team tournament

    The 8th Tiantai Cup Women’s Team Championship was held in Zhejiang Province in China from May 10 to 12. Competing were three-women teams from China, Korea, Japan, and Chinese Taipei. Two teams, perhaps, got a bit of a shock. Recently Chinese players have been dominating international go, but at present Korean women players seem to have an ascendancy over their Chinese rivals. Korea sailed through the tournament without dropping a game, taking first place with a score of 3-0 (9-0). China beat the other two teams and took second place on 2-1 (6-3). The second shock was for Japan, which was beaten 2-1 by Chinese Taipei. On the top board, Hei Jiajia beat Fujisawa Rina by 2.5 points. Scoring 1-2 (2-7), Chinese Taipei forced Japan, 0-3 (1-8) into fourth place. Japan picked up its sole win when Xie Yimin beat Yu Lijun 2P of Chinese Taipei.

Iyama recovers from bad start in Honinbo challenge

Kono Rin 9P made an excellent start in his challenge for the 74th Honinbo title match, so Iyama Yuta seemed to be in danger of having his multiple crown whittled down even further, but the momentum switched to Iyama when Kono let slip a sure-win game. Now Iyama is on top.

   The match got off to a start on May 11 and 12, with the first game being played at Ofuna Port, also known as the Ofunato City Disaster Prevention, Tourism and Exchange Center, in Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture. Kono drew black in the nigiri. He took the initiative in the opening and maintained an edge throughout the game. The combination of 155 and 165 was a brilliancy that wrapped up the game, as these two moves set up a double threat. No matter how he answered, White faced disaster, so Iyama resigned on move 169. O Meien 9P, who served as referee, commented that it was rare to see such a decisive blow in a top game. Incidentally, this was the first title-match game of the new Reiwa era.

   The second game was played at the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Literature in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, on May 22 and 23. The circumstances of the game are a good indication of the place go holds in traditional Japanese culture. It was one of a number of events commemorating the 30th anniversary of the founding of the museum and was actually played in a traditional teahouse attached to the museum. The name of the teahouse is Soshin-an, which means something like Hermitage of the Simple (or Pure) Heart. The head of the museum is the poet Saigusa Takayuki; as one of about 30 spectators, he witnessed the start of the game. The sight of Kono carefully wiping the board before the game led him to write a tanka (a 31-syllable poem also called “waka”), which reads: Shiroki nuno/mote banjou/migakitari/hito wa kokoro ni/kagami wo moteri (note that the “n” in “banjou” is counted as a syllable). My poor translation: Polishing the board with a white cloth, we have a mirror into our hearts.

   This game started out more peacefully than the first one, but the lead changed a number of times in middle-game fighting. Just when the game looked like going into a tight endgame contest, Iyama (black) made a major blunder and had to throw in the towel after move 166.  

   Trivia note: Iyama’s birthday was on May 24, so this was the last game of his 20s. These two losses may be an anticlimactic ending to his 20s, but it’s worth remembering that he has already won 55 titles; his nearest rivals in this respect are Cho Chikun and Cho U, who had both won approximately 30 titles by the age of 30.

The third game was played in the Goryokaku in Hakodate City, Hokkaido, on June 4 and 5. The venue is a fortress shaped like a five-pointed star built by the Tokugawa government in 1855 (a Net search of the name will bring up more information and photos). Playing black, Kono took the initiative in the opening and held it throughout, but, near the end of the endgame, he missed the best move a couple of times, losing a point each time. This let Iyama stage an upset and win by half a point. Kono commented that he had miscounted the score by a point, so he played facilely. The game ended on move 289. This was a costly reversal for Kono: the difference between 3-0 and 2-1 is enormous. 

   The fourth game was played at the Former Numazu Imperial Villa in Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, on June 13 and 14. This is a building that was once used as a summer residence for members of the imperial family, but is now a museum. Playing black, Iyama convincingly outplayed the challenger and won by resignation after 203 moves. It was his first good game of the series.    The fifth game was played at the Matsumoto Hotel Kagetsu, Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, on June 18 and 19. Playing white, Iyama won by 4.5 points.