History of Topics 2005

  Hane dug in deep in the final two games of the 29th Kisei title match after going down 2-3 in the fifth game. Hane resolved to play patiently and to wait for a chance even if the game was not going well, and this strategy paid off. Whereas four of the first five games had finished quite early by title-match standards, the last two games went the full distance.
After picking up a good win by 6.5 points with black in the sixth game, Hane drew black again for the seventh game, played at the Keidanaren (Federation of Economic Organizations) Guest House in the town of Oyama in Shizuoka Prefecture on 16 and 17 March.
  In contrast to the early fighting in some of the earlier games, this one got off to a leisurely start. White 36 was the sealed move. No major fighting broke out on the second day. With the game heading towards an endgame contest, Yuki slipped up with his 82nd move, making a first-line hane that wasn't urgent and that Hane ignored. This was close to being the losing move. Hane responded by building centre thickness; gradually the flow of the game turned in his favour.
Yuki missed his last chance to make a game of it with 118. Hane now had a secure lead of around ten points on the board, and he wrapped up the game without giving Yuki a chance to create trouble. The final margin, after 262 moves, was 4.5 points.
  The game finished at 7:25 p.m. on the second day. Of their time allowances of eight hours each, Hane was down to his last minute and Yuki to his second last minute.
  Hane made a good recovery from his abysmal form of the latter part of last year. Whatever happens now, he is number one for another year. Although he lost the series, Yuki put up a very good fight. Surely this won't be his last best-of-seven.

  O Rissei started the 43rd Judan title on the wrong side of a half-pointer, but he made a good comeback in the second game, outfighting the challenger Cho Chikun to score a 5.5-point victory. The game was played at the Takashimaya Inn in Iwamuro Hot Spring in Niigata Prefecture on 17 March.
  The third game will be played on 7 April.

  Cho Sonjin 9-dan is having a bad month: after losing his fourth straight game in the Meijin league, he has now suffered his first loss in the Honinbo league. However, he still has a chance to become the Honinbo challenger; the difference is that he will now have to win two games, beating Takao Shinji 8-dan in their final-round game and then in a play-off.
  In a game played at the Nihon Ki-in on 17 March, Cho (B) lost by resignation to Yoda Norimoto Gosei. This win guaranteed that Yoda would retain his league place.

60th Honinbo league (7 October 2004 to spring 2005)
Title-holder: Cho U

  Yi Ch'ang-ho has followed up his triumph in the Nong Shim Cup, in which he single-handedly rescued Korea, with yet another international victory. After a bad start in the final of the 5th Chunlan Cup, held in Beijing, Yi recovered to take the next two games. This gave him his second Chunlan Cup and his 20th international individual title.
  Yi may no longer dominate the domestic Korean titles, but he is still unmatched on the international scene.

The results:

Game 1 (14 March). Zhou (W) by 1/2 Game 2 (16 March). Yi (W) by resig. Game 3 (18 March). Yi (B) by resig.

  The final of the 52nd NHK Cup was televised on 20 March. Playing white, Cho U Meijin Honinbo defeated Yoda Norimoto Gosei by resignation to win this title for the second time. Yoda had dominated this tournament in the last couple of decades, winning it five times in 20 appearances, but now it looks as if Cho U is ready to take his place.
  First prize is 4 million yen. Both players gain places in the TV Asia Cup.

  Faced with a kadoban (a game that could lose a series), Hane Naoki Kisei played a masterly game in the sixth game of the 29th Kisei title match and evened the score at 3-3. Yuki Satoshi thus missed his first chance to become Kisei.
This game was played at the Kansuiro inn in Hakone on 9 and 10 March. Taking black, Hane won by resignation after 201 moves. Ironically, the cause of Yuki's loss was his reluctance to play a forcing move in a position where he had two options. It's professional to keep the forcing move in reserve in such a situation, but if he had played it he would have been in the game. As it happened, he later lost the group concerned.
  For the second year in a row, the Kisei title match goes to the seventh game. It will be played in the town of Oyama in Shizuoka Prefecture on 16 and 17 March.

  After losing the first game of the title match, Koyama Terumi 5-dan has made a good recovery, winning the second and third games and taking the title from Kobayashi Izumi. This is a comeback for Koyama, as she held this title from 1996 to 1998. (This was under her maiden name of Nishida Terumi; in a time slip, we called her Nishida in our reports on the first and second games ? thanks to John Fairbairn for pointing this out.)
  The third game was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo on 9 March. Playing white, Koyama forced a resignation after 160 moves. This was the second game in a row she had won with white; actually, in title matches her winning percentage with white is an astonishing 80% (though in all her games it's only 45%).
  After becoming the first and still only Japanese woman player to hold three titles concurrently in January 2004 (her triple crown lasted until November), Kobayashi Izumi is now without a title.

  Two games were played in the 30th Meijin league on 10 March, and the winners of both were players who had made bad starts. O Meien 9-dan was on 1-2, but he improved that to 2-2 by beating Ogata Masaki 9-dan; O had black and secured a resignation. Ogata is now 1-3. This game was played at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo.

  In the other game, played at the Osaka headquarters of the Nihon Ki-in, Yamada Kimio 8-dan (B) beat Cho Sonjin 9-dan by resignation to pick up his first win, to two losses, in the league. Cho dropped to 0-4; his abysmal form in the Meijin league is quite a contrast to the Honinbo league, where he has yet to lose a game.

30th Meijin league (10 December 2004 to summer 2005)
Title-holder: Cho U

  Playing in his first league, Takao Shinji 8-dan has gone one step ahead again, maintaining his unblemished record and putting pressure on his only remaining rival, Cho Sonjin 9-dan.
  In a game played at the Nihon on 10 March, Takao (W) beat So Yokoku 7-dan by resignation and so took his score to 6-0. So is now even on 3-3.
  Cho plays his sixth-round game on the 17th; he is faced with a tough opponent, Yoda Norimoto Gosei. All the games in the final round will then be played on 31 March

60th Honinbo league (7 October 2004 to spring 2005)
Title-holder: Cho U

  The promotions based on the prize money lists for 2004 were published in the current issue of Go Weekly. The top 6-dan and the top two 1-dan to 5-dan prize winners are promoted. They are listed below, with the first-mentioned player being the number one.

To 7-dan: Kanazawa Hideo
To 6-dan: Tsuruyama Atsushi, Rin Kanketsu
To 5-dan: Kato Yuki, Mochizuki Ken'ichi
To 4-dan: Iyama Yuta , Ko Iso
To 3-dan: Oba Junya, Ms. Makihata Taeko
To 2-dan: Furuya Masao, Ms. Xie Yimin

  Also, Chinen Kaori earned promotion to 4-dan based on her cumulative-wins record (50 wins as a 3-dan).

  Until now, the Samsung Cup was unique in staging a qualifying tournament in Seoul open to professionals from other countries, as well as to the local players, but as of its 10th term (the 9th title match hasn't been played yet) the LG Cup is adopting a similar system. According to this week's Go Weekly, some 30 players from Japan, including such prominent figures as Kobayashi Koichi, Yamada Kimio and Takao Shinji, not to mention Michael Redmond, are planning to take part.
  The qualifying tournament will be held in Seoul over four days from 21 to 24 March. The seeded Japanese players are Hane Naoki Kisei, O Rissei Judan, and Yamashita Keigo Tengen. (As the finalist in the 9th Cup, Cho U is seeded separately.)

  Chang Hao has finally achieved his long-cherished goal of winning an international title. After six second places, he defeated Korea's Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 9-dan 3-1 in the final of the 5th Ing Cup.
  After the opening session in the final, in Seoul at the end of last year, the match was tied 1-1. When it was resumed in Beijing, Chang won two straight to take the title. In Game 3, played on 3 March, Chang won by resignation with black. Playing white in Game 4, held on 5 March, he won by 3 points.
  Breaking his drought will be a great relief for Chang, not to mention the prize of $400,000.

  The first game of the 43rd Judan title match was played at the Nautique Shiroyama Hotel in the city of In-no-shima on 3 March. Playing in his first title match for over two years, Cho Chikun (B) made a blunder in the middle game that cost him four points, but O Rissei, the defending Judan, missed a number of chances to wrap up the game. Cho played most of the game in byo-yomi (from move 99), but his patience paid off and he caught up in the endgame, defeating O by half a point after 339 moves. The game started at 9 a.m. and finished at 7:44 p.m. The time allowance is four hours each. O Rissei also ended up with just one minute left.
  The second game will be played at Iwamuro Hot Spring in Niigata Prefecture on 17 March.

  The final of the 24th NEC Cup matched Cho U Meijin Honinbo against Ryu Shikun 9-dan. The latter won this title in 2003, whereas Cho was playing in the final for the first time. The game was played on 5 March and victory and the 15 million yen first prize went to Cho; playing black, he forced a resignation. Ryu had to be content with the second prize of 7,500,000 yen. Cho now holds four titles.
  Playing conditions are a little different from the NHK Cup. The players start out with a time allowance of ten minutes (which cannot be used at will, as in the NHK Cup), followed by byo-yomi of 30 seconds a move.

  Koyama Terumi 5-dan recovered from her bad start in the 17th Women's Meijin title match. In the second game, played on 2 March, Koyama, taking white, defeated Kobayashi Izumi by 13.5 points.
  The deciding game will be played on 9 March.

  Sakai Hideyuki 7-dan has scored a big win in the 30th Meijin league. In a game played on 3 March, Sakai (B) defeated Yoda Norimoto Gosei by half a point.
  In another game played on the same day, Yamashita Keigo Tengen (W) defeated Imamura Toshiya 9-dan by resignation.
Sakai's win changes the balance of the league. It leaves Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan, on 3-0, in the sole lead, and it also makes Sakai a contender, as he moves into a share of second place with Yoda - they are both on 3-1. Their closest rival is Yamashita, who has played one game less but who also has only one loss.

30th Meijin league (10 December 2004 to summer 2005)
Title-holder: Cho U

  With a 2-3 score, O Meien 9-dan had seemed to be heading for demotion from the 60th Honinbo league, but he has won his second-last game, which gives his chances of keeping his place a big boost.
  The game was played on 3 March; O (W) defeated Han Zenki 7-dan by 4.5 points. Han is having a rough initiation into the league and has only one more chance to pick up a win. In the final round, he will play O Rissei, who has done only slightly better.

60th Honinbo league (7 October 2004 to spring 2005)
Title-holder: Cho U

  Kono Yukio earned promotion to 5-dan by compiling 70 wins as a 4-dan.

  Michael Redmond 9-dan defeated Sonoda Yuichi 9-dan in a game in the final preliminary of the 44th Judan tournament. Playing black, Michael secured a resignation.

  This tournament, which decides the world's top student player, was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo on 26 and 27 February and for the third year in a row was won by a Chinese player.
  Sixteen players from ten countries and territories took part in the 4-round Swiss-system tournament. In the decisive game, Wen Jie of the Nanjing Postal and Electrical University beat Hu Yuqing of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Wen was the only player to win all four games. The top Westerner was Benjamin Teuber of Germany, who finished 7th with 2-2.