History of Topics 2005

  When Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan lost the first three games of the 30th Meijin best-of-seven title match, many fans, the present writer not excluded, thought that it was all over, as Kobayashi doesn't have the image of a tenacious back-to-the-wall fighter. However, he is proving us wrong and has now saved his second kadoban. With the score at 2-3, the match has suddenly come alive, especially as Kobayashi overcame Cho U playing on black, with which he has a remarkable winning percentage, to pick up his second win.
  The fifth game was played in an annex of the Go-shobo Inn in Arima Hot Spring in Kobe City on 19 and 20 October. Kobayashi played aggressively with white, plunging the game into early fighting. On the first day, the players agreed (in comments after the game) that Cho had a slight advantage. However, Cho's first move on the second day in response to Kobayashi's sealed move was slack and let Kobayashi wrest the initiative out of his grasp. Cho, being Cho, managed to create complications, but Kobayashi met all the challenges and managed to pull off a narrow win.
  The game finished relatively early, at 4:18 p.m., after 259 moves and White won by 1.5 points. Cho had 73 minutes of his eight hours time allowance left and Kobayashi 76 minutes.
  The sixth game will be played on 3 and 4 November. If Kobayashi manages to win this one too , we can look forward to a very exciting finale on 9 and 10 November.

  The 6th International New Stars tournament, in which eight-player teams from Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan compete, was held in Tokyo from 17 to 19 October. The star-studded Korean team won all its matches and so won the tournament for the fourth time. Its players scored 18 wins to six losses.
  Second place was taken by China, which won two matches to one loss and had a tally of 17-7. Japan, which won one match and scored 11-13, came third. Taiwan took last place with no match wins and a tally of 2-22.
  This year the Korean team included Pak Yeong-hun and Son T'ai-kon, who both won all three games, and other top young players such as Weon Seong-chin and Cho Han-seung, who both won two games. Japan fielded two of its top players in Hane Naoki and Yamashita Keigo, but they were not enough. Hane scored 2-1, which at least means that his improved performance in international go that started with the Nong Shim Cup is continuing, but Yamashita won only one game. Japan's new young star Iyama Yuta also played, but likewise won only one game.

Team results were as follows:

Round 1 (17 October)	Korea beat Japan 6-2; China beat Taiwan 8-0
Round 2 (18 October)	China beat Japan 6-2; Korea beat Taiwan 7-1.
Round 3 (19 October)	Japan beat Taiwan 7-1; Korea beat China 5-3.

  China is sure of winning the 10th LG Cup, as both finalists are China. One of them is the 15-year-old Chen Yaoye, who has a chance to set a new record for the youngest winner of an international tournament. The other is Gu Li, who is all of 22.
  This year China got six players into the quarterfinals, but it has done that a couple of times in international tournaments without winning them. The key is to eliminate all the Koreans before the final, which they managed to do.

Quarterfinals (17 October)
  Gu Li 7-dan (China) (W) beat Zhou Heyang 9-dan (China) by resignation.
  Chen Yaoye 4-dan (China) (B) beat Qiu Jun 7-dan (China) by resig.
  Piao Wenyao 3-dan (China) (W) beat Pak Cheong-sang 5-dan (Korea) by resig.
  Yi Se-tol 9-dan (Korea) (W) beat Wang Yuhui 7-dan (China) by resig.

  We don't have any details yet for the semifinals, played on 19 October ? just a report on a Web site that Chen and Gu had made the final.

  Yashiro Kumiko 5-dan has won her first title at the age of 29. In the 24th Women's Honinbo title match, she defeated Chinen Kaori 3-dan to win this title on her second attempt. The third game was played on 20 October; playing white, Yashiro won by resignation.

  Yamashiro Hiroshi 9-dan will make his second successive challenge for the Okan (Crown) title, a tournament limited to members of the Nagoya or Central Japan branch of the Nihon Ki-in. In the play-off, held on 20 October, Yamashiro, taking black, defeated Nakane Naoyuki 8-dan by resignation.
  The title is decided by a single game. The titleholder is Hane Naoki Kisei.

  Sato Fumitoshi earned promotion to 5-dan by the cumulative-wins system by winning 70 games.

  Kobayashi Satoru's Meijin challenge is still alive. In the fourth game, played at the Nagoya Tokyu Hotel on 11 and 12 October, Kobayashi, taking black, defeated Cho U Meijin by 3.5 points. This was a satisfying win for Kobayashi, as he played the kind of go he is known for, building thickness in the course of fighting and using it to take the lead. The game finished at 5:21 p.m. on the second day after 259 moves. Cho was down to his final two minutes of byo-yomi while Kobayashi had one hour 40 minutes left.
  The Nagoya branch of the Asahi Newspaper produced an extra reporting Kobayashi's victory and distributed it at the hotel
The fifth game will be played in Kobe City on 19 and 20 October.

  Hane Naoki has an inglorious record in international go over the last couple of years, but he got his team off to a good start in the 7th Nong Shim Spicy Noodles team tournament, the first round of which was held in Beijing last week. Hane won two games, after which Korea and China each won a game, so no team is in trouble yet.

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 second game in the new Honinbo league was played on 13 October. League newcomer So Yokoku 8-dan (white) made a good start by beating Yoda Norimoto Gosei by resignation.

in the chart

* B = playing black, W=playing white   * 1 = win, 0=loss

  O Rissei's dream of retaking the Judan title from Cho Chikun disappeared when he lost a game equivalent to a quarterfinal in the Losers' Section of the 44th Judan Tournament. Playing white, O was forced to resignaiton to Yamashita Keigo Tengen on 13 October.

  In Preliminary A of the 54th Oza tournament. Michael Redmond 9-dan (B) beat Akiyama Jiro 8-dan by half a point.

  Iyama Yuta 4-dan missed out on his first chance to set a new record for the youngest title winner when he lost the King of the New Stars final, but he has more than made up for that by winning the final of the 12th Agon Kiriyama Cup. Aged 16 years five months, he has lowered Cho Chikun's record, set when he won the 5th New Stars title in 1973, by seven months, Winning this title also carried with it automatic promotion to 7-dan, so he also set a record for the youngest-ever 7-dan.
  The final was held at the headquarters of the Agon sect of Buddhism (Kiriyama is the family name of the head of the sect), the Mt. Shaka Great Bodai Temple in Kyoto, on 8 October. Playing black, Iyama beat Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan by 6.5 points.
Iyama was born in Higashi Osaka (East Osaka) City on 24 May 1989. He learnt go at the age of 5, and in the 2nd and 3rd years of Elementary School he won the All-Japan Children's Tournament. He became a professional in 2002, which probably means that he was just under 13 when he made his debut. His cumulative record is 109 wins to 35 losses.
  Iyama commented that his goal is to get strong enough to do well in international tournaments. At present, he is unchallenged as Japan's hope for the future.

  Yashiro Kumiko 5-dan is within sight of her long-awaited first title. The 29-year-old Yashiro had established herself as one of the top woman players in recent years, but until now had fallen just short of taking a title. This year her luck seems to have changed. In the second game of the 24th Women's Honinbo title match, played in Iizaka Hot Spring in Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, on 6 October, Yashiro (black) defeated Chinen Kaori by resignation to extend her lead in the best-of-three to 2-0. As in the first game, Yashiro pulled off an upset victory after trailing early in the game.
  The third game will be played on 20 October.

  The final round of the Meijin league, in which four games are played on one day (one player actually has a bye), has traditionally been regarded as one of the biggest days of the year in Japanese tournament go, but that has been topped by the final rounds of the 30th Kisei A and B Leagues, in which all 12 members saw action on the same day. Actually, Yuki had already sewn an the lead in the A League in the fourth round, while Yamashita had a favourable position in the B League: he had to lose and his only rival Komatsu Hideki had to win for the latter to take over the lead, and neither of these things happened.
  That means that the challenger for the 30th Kisei title will be either Yuki or Yamashita. If the former wins the play-off, scheduled for 3 November, the match will be a replay of this year's title match; if the latter, a replay of last year's. The 29th play-off also featured these two players.

Results of the final round:

A League

Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (B) beat Kato Atsushi 8-dan by 8.5 points.   Yoda Norimoto (B) beat Cho U Meijin by resignation.   Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan (B) beat Honda Kunihisa 9-dan by resignation.

B League

Yamashita Keigo Tengen (B) beat O Rissei 9-dan by resignation.   O Meien 9-dan (W) beat Imamura Toshiya 9-dan by resignation.   Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan (W) beat Komatsu Hideki 9-dan by 1.5 points.

  The Kisei League rule that the higher-ranked player wins a tie led to contrasting fortunes for a pair of players in each league. In the A League, Yoda retained his place with 2-3 whereas Cho U dropped out with the same score. Similarly, in the B League, O Rissei stayed in and O Meien dropped out.

  The first game in the 61st Honinbo League was played on 6 October. Taking white, Hane Naoki Kisei defeated Cho Sonjin 9-dan by resignation.

  The first round of the 7th Nong Shim Cup will start in Beijing on 11 October. Japan and China are both fielding strong teams, but will they be able to break Korea's monopoly of this tournament? The members of the Korean team are chosen by a qualifying tournament ? but only for four members of the team. A seeded place is reserved for Yi Ch'ang-ho, whose presence in itself makes the Korean team the favourite.

The teams are:

Korea	:	Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan, Cho Han-seung 8-dan, Yu Chae-hyeong 7-dan, Weon Seong-chin 6-dan, Kang Tong-yun 3-dan.
China	:	Chang Hao 9-dan, Liu Xing 7-dan, Kong Jie 7-dan, Wang Yao 6-dan, Xie He 5-dan.
Japan	:	Hane Naoki 9-dan, Takao Shinji 9-dan, Yoda Norimoto 9-dan, Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan, Yamada Kimio 8-dan.

  The teams draw lots to see who plays in the opening round, then alternate after that, with each player continuing until he loses. A team does not have to announce its representative until the day of the game.

  In a game in Preliminary A of the 31st Gosei tournament, Michael Redmond (B) lost by 4.5 points to Takanashi Seiken 8-dan.

  Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan seemed to be enjoying some of the best form of his career this year, but nothing is going right for him in the 30th Meijin title match. The headline on page one of the current Go Weekly reads, 'Kobayashi ashen-faced', and the newspaper has a photo that seems to bear out the headline. The caption refers to his 'being driven to the edge of a precipice'.
Go Weekly is certainly turning on the drama, but who would have guessed before the match began, with the defending champion in a bit of a slump, that Cho U would start out with three straight wins?
  In the third game, played at the Tokiwa Hotel in Kofu City on 28 and 29 September, Cho U showed his renowned skill with the black stones, taking an early lead and fending off the opponent's attempts to catch up. The game ended early, at 3:40 p.m. on the second day, with Kobayashi resigning after 213 moves. Of their times allowances of eight hours each, Cho had 2 hours 7 minutes left and Kobayashi 47 minutes. The latter now faces his first kadoban (a game that could lost a series) in the fourth game, scheduled to be played in Nagoya on 11 and 12 October. His only hope now is to aim at four wins in a row.

  Korea has dominated the opening rounds of the 10th Samsung Cup, taking six of the quarterfinal places. The other two went to China, which means that for the second year in a row Japan has missed out.

Round 1 (28 September, Seoul)
Yoda Norimoto 9-dan (Japan) (B) d. Kim Chi-seok 2-dan (Korea) by 2.5; Yi Se-tol 9-dan (Korea) (B) d. Takao Shinji 9-dan (Japan) by resig.; Yu Chae-ho 1-dan (Korea) (W) d. Cho Chikun 9-dan (Japan) by 1.5; Hane Naoki 9-dan (Japan) (B) d. Yun Chun-sang 4-dan (Korea) by resig.; Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan (Korea) (W) d. Mizokami Tomochika 8-dan (Japan) by resig.; Tsuruyama Atsushi 6-dan (Japan) (B) d. Rui Naiwei 9-dan (Korea) by 4.5; Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 9-dan (Korea) (W) d. Zhou Heyang 9-dan (China) by resig.; Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) (W) d. Yi Heui-seong 6-dan (Korea) by resig.; Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 9-dan (Korea) d. Li Zhe 5-dan (China) by resig.; Wang Xi 5-dan (China) (B) d. Chin Si-yon 3-dan (Korea); Hu Yaoyu 8-dan (China) (B) d. Pak Yeong-hun 9-dan (Korea) by resig.; Gu Li 7-dan (China) (B) d. Paek Hong-seok 4-dan (Korea) by resig.; Piao Wenyao 5-dan (China) (B) d. Yi Cheong-u 5-dan (Korea) d. by 5.5; Song T'ae-kon 7-dan (Korea) (B) d. Kong Jie 7-dan (China) by resig.; Luo Xihe 9-dan (China) (B) d. Cho Han-seung 8-dan (Korea) by resig.; Kim Myeong-wan 7-dan (Korea) (W) d. Wang Lei 5-dan (China) by resig.

Round 2 (30 September, Seoul)
Yi Se-tol (B) d. Yoda by resig.; Hu (W) d. Yu 1-dan by resig.; Ch'oe (B) d. Hane by resig.; Cho (B) d. Wang Xi by resig.; Kim (B) d. Tsuruyama by resig.; Yu Ch'ang-hyeok (W) d. Piao by resig.; Yi Ch'ang-ho (B) d. Gu Li by .5; Luo (W) d. Song by resig.

(Thanks to John Fairbairn, for help with a couple of names above.)

  Yashiro Kumiko 5-dan has made a good start in her second challenge for the Women's Honinbo title. Two years ago she lost 1-3 to Kobayashi Izumi. In the meantime, Chinen Kaori took the title from Kobayashi and is now meeting the challenge of Yashiro. The first game was held in Naha City in Okinawa on 22 September. Taking white, Yashiro won by 1.5 points.   The second game of the best-of-five is scheduled for 6 October.

  Yuki Satoshi 9-dan is not having much luck with his challenges for major titles, but he has picked up yet another haya-go (fast go) title, the 14th Ryusei. In the final, telecast on satellite TV on 30 September, he defeated Cho U Meijin; taking black, he secured a resignation.
  This is Yuki's fourth fast-go title; he has also won the King of the New Stars title.

  One game in the 30th Kisei B League was played on 29th September. Playing black, O Rissei 9-dan defeated Imamura Toshiya 9-dan by resignation. Although this was only O's second win, it guaranteed he kept his league place. The reason is that two lower-ranked players have already lost three games, so whatever happens O will finish in the top four, thanks to his number two rank in the league. For similar reasons, Imamura is already certain to lose his place, regardless of the result of his final game.