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The Power Report: Ida sets new record in Crown; China wins Kiriyama Play-off; Iyama wins Ryusei

John Power, Japan Correspondent for the E-Journal | Published on 1/24/2023


Ida Atsushi 9-dan

Ida sets new record in Crown
 
  
The Crown title is a regional title, open only to the members of the Central Japan (Nagoya) branch of the Nihon Ki-in. The one-game final of the 63rd title was held on November 22. Ida Atsushi 9-dan (B) beat Mutsuura Yuta 7-dan by resignation. This was his seventh successive Crown title, a new record (though other players have won it more often). First prize is 1,700,000 yen.
 

Li Qincheng 9-dan
China wins 23rd Agon Kiriyama Play-off
 
The annual Japan-China Agon Kiriyama Cup Play-off was held on the net on December 17. Li Qincheng 9-dan of China, who held white, beat Hirata Tomoya 7-dan of Japan by resignation. Actually, the Chinese go world has apparently been in a chaotic state because of covid-related restrictions, and there were repeated changes in the arrangements for this play-off. In the end, the Chinese managed to hold their Agon-Kiriyama Cup the day before this play-off (Li beat Xie Erhao 9-dan in the final). The chaos didn’t seem to affect Li’s play. 



Iyama wins Ryusei title after life-and-death hallucination
 

The final of the 31st Ryusei title was telecast on December 26. Iyama Yuta (B) beat Yuki Satoshi 9-dan of the Kansai Ki-in by resignation after 111 moves. This is his fourth Ryusei title, but his first for ten years. Most title matches in 2022 featured at least one young player, but this was an exception: Iyama is 33 and Yuki 50. This is Iyama’s 71st title, so he is just four behind Cho Chikun. His pace has slowed considerably, so it no longer seems so certain that he will reach three digits.
 

There’s a strange story attached to this triumph, though. In his quarterfinal game with Kato Atsushi 9-dan, both Iyama and Kato hallucinated that one of Kato’s groups was dead when it could live with one move. As a life-and-death problem, it could easily be solved by an average amateur. Having assumed it was dead, neither player took another look at it. At the end of the game, Iyama took this group of six stones off the board and counted the score. He and Kato had agreed the game was over and the latter made no objection when the former took the group off the board (it needed another move to live). The result was a 3.5-point win for Iyama. Kato accepted this result, so there was no problem as far as the rules were concerned. Takao Shinji 9-dan, who did the commentary for the TV program, said that in 30 years as a professional he had never seen anything like it.
 

Iyama confided to Cho U, who later became the commentator for the final, that he was deeply upset by his oversight and felt that he had lost the trust of go fans. He told Cho that he was determined to win the final while playing a good game to regain the trust of fans.





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