History of Topics 2006

  The first game of the 30th Kisei title match was played at the Intercontinental Hotel in Berlin on 15 & 16 January. Hane Naoki, the defending title holder, made a good start with white and halfway through the middle game seemed to have a small lead, but the challenger, Yamashita Keigo, played a brilliant tesuji with move 123 that dragged the game back to even. It seemed to be heading for an endgame contest when Hane suffered a hallucination concerning the life and death of one of his groups and was forced to resignaiton after Yamashita's next move. Yamashita has thus made a good start in his quest to regain his title.
  It has become the custom for the first game in the Kisei best-of-seven to go overseas. This is the second time a game has been played in Germany - the first time was in the 14th Kisei title match in 1990, when Otake Hideo challenged Kobayashi Koichi and Game One was played in Dusseldorf.
  The game ended at 18:27 p.m. after 179 moves. Hane had 12 minutes of his eight-hour time allowance left and Yamashita seven minutes (which meant that he was three minutes into his byo-yomi allotment of ten minutes). Incidentally, Catalin Taranu, a 5-dan Nihon Ki-in professional from Romania, acted as one of the game recorders.
  The second game will be played at Gero Hot Spring in Gifu Prefecture on 1 & 2 February.

  The seventh annual play-off between the winners of the Japanese and Chinese Agon Kiriyama Cups was held on Hainan Island in China on 10 January. Gu Li 7-dan of China (white) defeated Iyama Yuta 7-dan of Japan by resignation after 172 moves. The 16-year-old Iyama had set a record for the youngest title winner in Japan, but he is not yet a match for the 22-year-old Gu Li, who has been China's number one for some time now.
  This was Gu's second victory in this series. Japan had started well, winning the first four play-offs, but China has now won three in a row, so it is catching up rapidly.
  First prize is ¥5,000,000 (about $42,000) and second is ¥2,000,000.

  The new year is only three weeks old, but it is shaping up as the year of China, which has already scored three international triumphs.
  The 28-year-old Luo Xihe 9-dan is close to being a veteran by Chinese standards. He has played in a number of international tournaments and has earned a reputation for the lightning speed of his play. Compared to Japanese tournaments, international tournaments have short time limits, with three hours per player being usual. However, as of the 10th term, this has been shortened to two hours in the Samsung Cup. Obviously, this suited Luo and may have been a factor in his scoring his first international victory. To reach the final, he had to get past two of Korea's top players, Yi Se-tol in the quarterfinals and Ch'oe Ch'eol-han in the semifinals. In the final, he was matched against the top player of them all, Yi Ch'ang-ho, but he managed to defeat him with two wins to one loss.
  For his efforts, Luo takes home a purse of 200 million won (a bit over $200,000). The best-of-three final was played in Seoul. Luo (B) won the first game (the 10th) by resignation, lost the second (12th) by 3.5 points, then, playing black again, won the decider (13th) by 5.5 points.

  This is the third of the triumphs referred to above. The third round of the 4th Cheongkwanjang Cup was played in Shanghai in mid-January. The final player for Korea started well by winning two games, including a victory over Rui Naiwei, but then the number four player for China defeated her, so China won the tournament with one player to spare. Full results follow:

Game 11 (16 Jan.). Pak Chi-eun 6-dan (Korea) (B) defeated Rui Naiwei 9-dan (China) by 1.5 points.
Game 12 (17 Jan.). Pak (B) defeated Koyama Terumi 5-dan (Japan) by 4.5 points.
Game 13 (18 Jan.). Ye Gui 5-dan (China) (B) defeated Pak by half a point.
(Xu Ying of China did not play.)

  Korean representatives (one of them Rui) won the first two cups, when it was an individual tournament, but China has now won the two team tournaments.

  In the play-off to decide the challenger to Koyama Terumi 5-dan, held on 9 January, Aoki Kikuyo 8-dan (B) defeated Yoshida Mika 8-dan of the Kansai Ki-in by resignation. The title match will start on 9 February.
  This will be Aoki's first title match for three years. She has won nine titles - the Women's Kakusei and this title four times each and the Strongest Woman Player once - and needs just one more to tie for first with Sugiuchi Kazuko, Kobayashi Reiko, and Kobayashi Izumi.

  A key game was played on 6 January between the joint leaders in the 61st Honinbo League. Cho U Meijin defeated Hane Naoki Kisei and so took the sole lead. Cho is on 4-0 and now seems to have a very good chance of securing a return match with Takao Shinji Honinbo. The major remaining hurdle for him is his game with Yoda Norimoto Gosei in the fifth round. Hane drops to 3-1 and will have to rely on the other players in the league to get a chance to catch up. This game and the game in the Meijin League reported below were the first two games in the new tournament year.
  Two more games were played on 12 January. In one, Yamada Kimio 8-dan (B) defeated So Yokoku 8-dan by resignation, so he joins Hane in second place. In the other game, Cho Sonjin 9-dan (W) picked up his first win by defeating O Meien 9-dan by 8.5 points. With four losses, O seems headed for demotion.

  On January 6, Han Zenki defeated Yamashita Keigo to pick up his first-ever win in a league (he made an inauspicious debut in the 60th Honinbo league).
  Another game was played on 12 January. Ko Iso 7-dan, the youngest player ever to play in the Meijin league, showed that winning his place was no fluke by defeating Imamura Toshiya 9-dan, who has been one of the leading players in the league recently. Taking black, Ko won by 3.5 points.
  Two more games were played on 19 January. Takao Shinji Honinbo (W) defeated Yamada Kimio 9-dan by resignation and Sakai Hideyuki 7-dan (B) defeated Yoda Norimoto Gosei, also by resignation.

  The win in the Meijin league described above was Takao's 600th as a professional. He reached this mark at the age of 29 years two months, which is a new record, breaking Cho Chikun's record of 30 years two months. Takao did it in 14 years nine months since becoming a professional, which is also a new record, breaking Yamada Kimio's mark of 15 years 6 months. He also has the best winning percentage on reaching this landmark of 75.4%.
  We didn't hear about these landmarks with the older generation of go players. This is one of the by-products of the Nihon Ki-in's computerization of its records.

  The final of the Losers' Section of the 44th Judan Tournament was held on 12 January. Taking black, Yamashita defeated Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan by 3.5 points.
  Yamashita will meet Takao Shinji Honinbo, winner of the Winners' Section, in the play-off to decide the challenger to Cho Chikun Judan. If Yamashita wins the play-off, scheduled for 26 January, he will become extremely busy again, as the match will overlap with the end of the Kisei title match. In fact, it would be his fourth title match in succession, following the Oza and Tengen, which were the last two matches of the 2005 tournament year.

  The first of the play-offs for the nonseeded Japanese places in the 19th Fujitsu Cup was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo on 19 January. Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (W) beat Rin Kaiho, Honorary Tengen, by resignation and so will play in the international tournament for the second year in a row and the sixth time overall.
  The pairings in the other play-offs are: Yamashita Keigo vs. Sakai Hideyuki (who beat O Rissei in the semifinal round), Yamada Takuji 7-dan vs. Yamashiro Hiroshi 9-dan, and Cho Chikun Judan (who eliminated Yoda Norimoto) vs. Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan.

  Yamada Kimio became the first player to earn promotion to 9-dan through the cumulative-wins promotion system. His win against So Yokoku in the Honinbo League reported above was his 200th as an 8-dan, so he qualified for promotion to 9-dan [actually he's won more than 200, but only 90% of wins scored before the new system came into effect at the beginning of 2003 are carried over].

  Michael Redmond was unable to prevail in his first game of the year, which matched him against a tough opponent, Cho U Meijin. Michael had won his way through the qualifying sections into the main tournament of the 32nd Tengen. Reaching the main (or final) section of a tournament is a solid achievement; usually there are 32 players who take part in a five-round knockout to decide the challenger (actually the Tengen is a little irregular, with 34 players, four of whom play an extra game. However, he failed to progress any further; taking white in their game, played on 19 January, Cho secured a resignation.