History of Topics 2005

  Kono Rin 7-dan has followed up on his success in the second game of the 31st Tengen best-of-five title match by scoring a powerful win in the third game. This means that he needs just one more win to take his first title.
  The third Tengen game was played at the Hita Hot Spring Sanyokan inn, in Hita City, Oita Prefecture, on 24 November. In a game marked by fighting from the outset, Yamashita suffered from a hallucination that let Kono capture a large group. The game ended with his resignation on Kono's 165th move.
  Yamashita has now lost three title-match games in a row-two in the Tengen and one in the Oza-in the last two weeks; he's in a tough position, as he now faces kadobans (a game that could lose a series) in both title matches. This is hardly the lead-up to his Kisei challenge that he would have been hoping for. Fortunately for Yamashita, there is a bit of a gap before the fourth Tengen game, to be played in Kobe on 15 December, but he will have to continue at his hectic pace of two games a week, including the fourth Oza game on 1 December.

  We are posting this report the day before the final game in the Seoul Round of the 7th Nong Shim Spicy Noodles Cup. At this point, the honours are evenly shared, with each country having scored three wins to three losses. Either Korea or Japan will go one step ahead in the tenth game.
  This result means that both Korea and China have recovered from their poor starts in the Beijing Round, when they each won only one game, to Japan's two. Of course, putting math aside, the favourite must be Korea, as it still has Yi Ch'ang-ho left; he has never lost a game in this tournament or its predecessor, the Jinro Cup.
  Full results to date are given below.

The Beijing Round
  Game 1 (11 Oct.). Hane Naoki 9-dan (Japan) (W) d. Kang Tong-yun 3-dan (Korea) by resig.
  Game 2 (12 Oct.). Hane (W) d. Wang Yao 6-dan (China) by resig..
  Game 3 (13 Oct.). Yu Chae-hyeong 7-dan (Korea) (B) d. Hane by resig.
  Game 4 (14 Oct.). Liu Xing 7-dan (China) (B) d. Yu by resig.

The Seoul Round
  Game 5 (23 Nov.). Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan (Japan) (W) d. Liu Xing 7-dan (China) by resig.
  Game 6 (24 Nov.). Weon Seong-chin 6-dan (Korea) (B) d. Mimura by resig.
  Game 7 (25 Nov.). Xie He 6-dan (China) (W) d. Weon by half a point.
  Game 8 (26 Nov.). Xie (B) beat Yamada Kimio 8-dan (Japan) by resignation.
  Game 9 (27 Nov.). Cho Han-seung 8-dan (Korea) (B) beat Xie by resignation.
  Game 10 (28 Nov.). Takao Shinji 9-dan (Japan) vs. Cho Han-seung 8-dan (Korea)

  The final of the 7th Chinese Agon Kiriyama Cup was held on 22 November, with Gu Li 7-dan (white) beating Qiu Jun 7-dan by resignation. Gu will meet Iyama Yuta 7-dan in the play-off between the winners of these sister titles in China and Japan. The game will be played early next year in China.

  Playing black, Michael Redmond 9-dan was edged out by just half a point in a game with Kubo Hideo 5-dan in Preliminary B of the Japanese qualifying tournament for the 3rd Toyota & Denso Cup.

  Kono Rin has scored his first win in a top-seven title-match game. Taking white against Yamashita Keigo, he won the second game of the 31st Tengen title match, played in Yamashita's hometown of Asahikawa on 17 November, by 5.5 points. The game was decided when Kono was able to break into a large moyo that Yamashita had set up. This win should be a big boost to his confidence.
  The third game will be played on 24 November.

  Just half a week after his Tengen loss, Yamashita suffered another setback, losing the second game of the 53rd Oza title match, in which he is the challenger. Playing white, Cho U forced Yamashita to resignaiton after just 136 moves when he captured a group of five stones in the centre, though actually the issue had already been decided earlier when Cho played brilliantly in securing a group under attack. This game was played at the Jinya Inn in Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Yamashita is playing important games at the rate of two a week. He is going to have to dig deep if he wants to end the year as a titleholder. The third Oza game will be played in Nara on 1 December.

  Two games in the 61st league were played on 17 November. Yamada Kimio 8-dan (W) beat O Meien 9-dan by 5.5 points and Cho U Meijin (B) beat O Rissei 9-dan by resignation.
  There has been an unusual start to the current league: there are four players on 2-0 and four on 0-2. What's even more unusual is that every game played so far has been won by the younger player.

  Six Korean and two Chinese players had won their way to the quarterfinals of the 10th Samsung Cup. These were played over two days, 15 and 16 November, and the results was that the numbers are now even: two Koreans and two Chinese have made it to the semifinals. The Koreans are Yi Ch'ang-ho and Ch'oe Ch'eol-han, who both hold current world titles, while the Chinese are Luo Xihe and Hu Yaoyu, neither of whom has yet won an international tournament.

Quarterfinals
(15 November)
 Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) (B) d. Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 9-dan (Korea) by 5.5.
 Luo Xihe 9-dan (China) (W) d. Yi Se-tol 9-dan (Korea) by resig.

(16 November)
 Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 9-dan (Korea) (W) d. Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan (Korea) by resig.
 Hu Yaoyu 8-dan (China) (B) d. Kim Myeong-wan 7-dan (Korea) by resig.

  Former Honinbo Takemiya Masaki 9-dan seems to be more prominent as a commentator these days than as a player, but actually he has been enjoying his best form for some time recently. He hasn't lost a game in over four months and has now racked up 13 wins in a row.

  This time the miracle didn't come off. After a disastrous start with three straight losses in the 30th Meijin title match, Kobayashi Satoru recovered to win the next three games and tie the match. He then made a better start than the defending champion, Cho U, on the first day of the seventh game, but Cho fought back strongly on the second day and ended up forcing a resignation after 176 moves. Cho's feat may be the real miracle: the first five times a player recovered from a 0-3 deficit he went on to win the match. Last year Hane broke this pattern for the first time in the Kisei title match, so it has now happened twice in a row. Perhaps the term 'miracle' for either side has to be retired.
  The seventh game was played at an inn called the Devil's Dwelling Place in Shuzenji in Shizuoka Prefecture on 9 and 10 November. The game ended at 4:04 p.m. on the second day. Of their time allowances of eight hours each, Cho had 81 minutes left and Kobayashi 67 minutes.
  As mentioned above, Kobayashi had a slightly better position on the first day, and his lead seemed to be confirmed by the sharp move he made for the sealed move (Black 87). However, his 103rd move was dubious and let Cho seize the initiative. The game seemed to be heading for an endgame contest when Cho made an aggressive placement with White 126. This enabled him to cut off three black stones and made victory certain.
  The newspaper commentator Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan commented: 'Both players exerted all their strength in this series. In the final game, the precision of the Meijin's reading in hand-to-hand fighting stood out.'
  Incidentally, this is the first time since 1992 that a Meijin series has gone the full distance.

  Yamashita Keigo has taken the first step towards defending his Tengen title. In the first game, played at the Kanazawa Grand Hotel in Kanazawa City on 7 November, he drew black in the nigiri and defeated the challenger, Kono Rin 7-dan, by 6.5 points. Kono has got off on the wrong foot in his title-match debut.
  The second game will be played in Asahikawa City in Hokkaido on 17 November.

  The third of the three vacant places in the 31st Meijin League was decided on 10 November when Takao Shinji Honinbo (W) defeated O Meien 9-dan by resignation. He joins Han Zenki 7-dan and Ko Iso 7-dan in the new league; all three will be making their league debuts. The first round will be played during December.

  In a game in Preliminary A in the 32nd Tengen tournament, Michael Redmond 9-dan (B) defeated Kanazawa Hideo 7-dan by resignation.

  Kobayashi Satoru's tenacious fightback after his disastrous start in the 30th Meijin title match continues and he has pulled even on 3-3 with Cho U. The match heads into a final showdown next week after a break of just six days and Kobayashi seems to have all the momentum. However, the result in the latest game could easily have gone the other way.
  The sixth game was played at the Wakatsuki Villa, now a Japanese-style inn but originally a villa built for a prewar prime minister of Japan, Baron Wakatsuki Reijiro, in Ito City on 3 and 4 November. The issue was decided by the outcome of a ko late in the endgame; when Kobayashi won it, his half-point win was decided. It was suggested later that if Cho had avoided the ko fight, which was his option, he would have been the one to pull off a half-point win. Ironically, Cho is known for his skill at fighting kos, but in this case it led to his downfall.
  Incidentally, the satellite-TV commentator was Michael Redmond 9-dan, who did his usually highly professional job. He correctly predicted the result on live TV when Kobayashi won the ko.
  This is the seventh time that a player has recovered from a 0-3 deficit to even the score. Most recently, it happened in last year's Kisei title match, and that was the first time that the player who won the first three games, then lost the next three (Hane Naoki) turned the tide and won the seventh game. That would seem to indicate that the odds favour Kobayashi, but Cho is unlikely to be swayed by these precedents.
  The match-deciding game will be played in Izu City on 9 and 10 November.

  Yamashita Keigo Tengen will get a chance to reclaim the title that he lost to Hane Naoki two years ago. In the play-off to decide the challenger for the 30th Kisei title, he defeated Yuki Satoshi 9-dan by 3.5 points; Yamashita had black.
  This play-off featured the same pairing as last year, with the difference that Yuki won that time. Yamashita got his revenge this year, but actually the game was a good one for Yuki; he seems to have played slackly in the endgame from over-optimism.
  Yamashita has an excellent record against Hane of 18 wins to 9 losses and has won all five games the two have played since the Kisei match. However, he had the same winning percentage against Hane (10 wins, 5 losses) before the Kisei match, and didn't mean much. Will it be different this time?
  The first game will be played in Berlin on 15 & 16 January.

  Two games in the second round of the 61st Honinbo League were played at the Nihon Ki-in on 3 November. Hane Naoki Kisei (B) beat Yoda Norimoto Gosei and So Yokoku (B) beat Cho Sonjin; the margin in both games was half a point. Both winners have made excellent starts with two wins and both losers have two losses.

  A player who has been a professional for barely two months has given China a great start in the 4th Cheongkwanjang Cup, a Korean-sponsored women's international tournament that switched to a team format like the Nong Shim Cup in its previous term. The player is Wang Shangyun 1-dan, who turned professional on 26 September, the same day that she won the Chinese Women's Championship as an amateur. She has made a clean sweep of the opening round, played in Beijing, winning all four games. This is a superb start to a professional career.
  Japan and Korea are in trouble - if they don't stop Chang soon, they will run out of players.

Results of the Beijing Round
  Game 1 (1 Nov.). Wang Shangming 1-dan (China) (B) defeated Shinkai Hiroko 5-dan (Japan) by 4.5 points.
  Game 2 (2 Nov.). Wang (W) defeated Kim Eun-seon 2-dan (Korea) by 2.5 points.
  Game 3 (3 Nov.). Wang (B) defeated Mannami Kana 3-dan (Japan) by 3.5 points.
  Game 4 (4 Nov.). Wang (W) defeated Li Dohui 3-dan (China) by resig.

  Cho U is probably preoccupied with his Meijin defence, which has faltered in the last two games, but he's got another challenger on his hands in the 53rd Oza title match. Word has it that the arrival of his first child is imminent, so he must have a lot on his mind these days. Nonetheless, he made a good start in the best-of-five Oza match, defeating the challenger Yamashita Keigo Tengen. The game was played at the Westin Hotel Tokyo in Meguro Ward on 28 October. Playing with black, which is his forte, Cho U secured a resignation after 179 moves. That may sound as if the game was another one of his relentless wins with black, but actually it was full of drama, with upset succeeding upset. Yamashita made his final mistake under time pressure.
  There is a gap of over three weeks, because of the Meijin schedule, before the second game, which will be played on 21 November.

  Ko Iso 4-dan has broken the record for the youngest player to win a seat in the Meijin league. He has achieved this feat at the age of 18 years six months, which breaks Yoda Norimoto's record of 18 years eight months, set in 1984 (the 10th Meijin League). In the play-off for one of the three vacant seats in the 31st Meijin League, Ko (B) defeated Kono Rin by resignation. This win also secured Ko promotion to 7-dan. According to the new promotions rules, in effect since the beginning of 2003, winning a seat in a league or challenging for the Judan, Tengen or Oza title earns you promotion to 7-dan (challenging for the Kisei, Meijin or Honinbo or winning one of the above-mentioned four titles takes you to 8-dan).
  This is the second promotion from 4-dan to 7-dan in the same month. Incidentally, the record is not just for the Meijin league, but for all leagues.

  In the final of the Winners' Section of the 44th Judan title, played on 27 October, Takao Shinji Honinbo (B) defeated Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan by resignation. This secures Takao a place in the play-off to decide the challenger for the title.
  In a game between the top two in the most-wins list in the quarterfinal stage of the Losers' Section, played on the same day, Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan (W) defeated So Yokoku 8-dan by 5.5 points. With this win, Kobayashi overtook So; they both have 38 wins to 12 losses.
  Kobayashi will meet Yamashita Keigo in the semifinal. The other semifinal matches Cho U against Mimura. The eventual winner among them will meet Takao in the play-off. The winner of the Winners' Section is the only player who doesn't have the luxury of being able to lose one game.

  The first round in the new Honinbo league has now been completed, with two more games being played last week. On 24 October, Cho U Meijin (B) defeated O Meien 9-dan by resignation. On 27 October, Yamada Kimio 8-dan (W) defeated O Rissei by resignation.
  Three out of the four league newcomers have made a good start.

  In a game in Preliminary B of the 31st Kisei tournament, Michael Redmond 9-dan (W) defeated Shuto Shun 4-dan by half a point.