History of Topics 2006

  Cho Chikun now needs only one more win to defend his title in the 44th Judan best-of-five. Following upon his good start to the match, Cho has also won the second game; taking black, he forced the challenger, Yamashita Keigo Kisei, to resignaiton after 211 moves.
  The game was played at the Ginbaso Inn in Nishiura Hot Spring, Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture on 27 March. It finished at 6:45 p.m, and each player was down to his last minute of byo-yomi (the time allowance is four hours each, and the last five minutes are allotted to byo-yomi).
  The third game will be played in Omachi City in Nagano Prefecture on 5 April.

  Hane Naoki 9-dan has bounced back from his setback in the Kisei title match, winning his first NHK Cup. In the final of the 53rd Cup, telecast on 19 March, he defeated Imamura Toshiya 9-dan of the Kansai Ki-in; taking black, Hane secured a resignation after 187 moves.
  Incidentally, this was the first victory by a Nagoya player in this tournament for 52 years - Shimamura Toshihiro 9-dan won the inaugural tournament in 1954,

  Two games have been played in the 31st Meijin League since our last report. On 13 March, Yamashita Keigo Kisei (W) defeated Yamada Kimio 9-dan by resignation and finally scored his first win in the league.
  On 23 March, Yoda Norimoto Gosei (B) defeated Takao Shinji Honinbo by 2.5 points. This was Takao's first loss in the league; the contest is now wide open and nearly every player in the league could consider himself in the running to become the challenger.

  On 16 March, Yamashita Keigo (W) defeated Takemiya Masaki 9-dan by resignation in the 31st Gosei tournament; this secured him a place in the semifinals.
  On the 23rd, the first of the semifinals was held; Cho U Meijin (W) defeated Ryu Shikun 9-dan by 4.5 points. Yamashita plays Cho Chikun Judan in the other semifinal.

  Michael Redmond had a busy week last week, playing three games. In preliminary A of the 13th Agon Kiriyama Cup, he defeated Murakami Shin, an amateur by resignation with white and Maeda Ryoji 7-dan by resignation with black. Both games were played on 20 March. On 23 March, he lost by resignation to Kim Shujun 7-dan (B) in the final preliminary round of the 45th Judan tournament.

  Below are the full details of the second-round games in this tournament (we did not get the scores in time for our previous report).

Round Two (13 March, Beijing)
  Xie He (China) (B) defeated Hane Naoki 9-dan (Japan) by 1.5 points.
  Zhou Heyang 9-dan (China) (B) defeated Cho Chikun (Japan) by resig.
  Yi Se-tol (Korea) (W) defeated Luo Xihe 9-dan (China) by resig.
  Hu Yaoyu 8-dan (China) (W) defeated Yoda Norimoto (Japan) by resig.
  Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) (B) defeated Chen Yaoye (China) by resig.
  Chang Hao 9-dan (China) (W) defeated Yuki Satoshi (Japan) by resig.
  Peng Quan 6-dan (China) (B) defeated Ko Keun-t'ae (Korea) by 3.5 points.
  Gu Li 7-dan (China) (W) defeated Kono Rin (Japan) by resig.

  Cho Chikun Judan has an abysmal career record against this year's Judan challenger, Yamashita Keigo Kisei, having won just three of the 12 games they had played. Although Cho won their first encounter, Yamashita won the next eight games; more recently, Cho has won two out of three, to improve his record a little.
  However, the first game of the 44th Judan title match demonstrated once again that past results are irrelevant to a title match, as Cho (white) won the game by resignation. Suddenly, his prospects for defending his title look much brighter.
The game was played at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel, located in Urayasu City in Chiba Prefecture, on 8 March. As expected, it became a contest between Yamashita's attack and Cho's shinogi. Cho cleverly parried Yamashita's attacks and secured a resignation after 224 moves.

  The opening rounds of the 6th Chunlan were held in Beijing on 11 and 13 March. In the first round, Japan made a good start, with all four of its representatives winning their games. China and Korea also won two games each, which meant that the European, North American and Taiwanese representatives were eliminated. Michael Redmond lost a close game to Ko Keun-t'ae, an 18-year-old who has been doing well recently in Korea, including winning his first title, the Bacchus Chunweon Cup, last December.
  The second round, in which the eight seeded players joined the tournament, was dominated by China, which yet again secured six of the quarterfinal places in an international tournament. All the Japanese players were eliminated, while the two Yis saved face for Korea.
  The results are given below, but we don't have full details of the second-round games as yet.

Round One (11 March, Beijing)
  Yoda Norimoto 9-dan (Japan) (W) defeated Kong Jie 7-dan by resig.
  Cho Chikun 9-dan (Japan) (W) d. Yu Bin 9-dan (China) by 2.5 points.
  Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (Japan) (W) d. Zhou Junxun 9-dan (Taiwan) by resig.
  Kono Rin 8-dan (Japan) (B) d. Lin Shengxian 7-dan (Taiwan) by 9.5.
  Ko Keun-t'ae 4-dan (Korea) (W) d. Michael Redmond 9-dan (U.S.) by 2.5.
  Yi Se-tol 9-dan (Korea) (W) d. Catalin Taranu 5-dan (Europe) by resig.
  Xie He 6-dan (China) (B) d. Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 9-dan (Korea) by resig.
  Chen Yaoye 5-dan (China) (B) d. Pak Yeong-hun 9-dan (Korea) by 1.5.

Round Two (13 March, Beijing)
  Xie He d. Hane Naoki 9-dan (Japan).
  Zhou Heyang 9-dan (China) d. Cho Chikun.
  Yi Se-tol d. Luo Xihe 9-dan (China).
  Hu Yaoyu 8-dan (China) d. Yoda Norimoto.
  Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) d. Chen Yaoye.
  Chang Hao 9-dan (China) d. Yuki Satoshi.
  Peng Quan 6-dan (China) d. Ko Keun-t'ae.
  Gu Li 7-dan (China) d. Kono Rin.

  Hane Naoki may have suffered a disastrous setback in his Kisei defence, but he is not reacting by going into a slump. On the contrary, he now has the best chance of becoming the Honinbo challenger, as he has taken the sole lead in the league.
Four games have been played in the 61st league in the last two weeks. On 2 March, Yoda Norimoto Gosei (W) defeated Cho Sonjin 9-dan by 6.5 points and O Rissei 9-dan (B) defeated O Meien 9-dan by 3.5 points.
  On 8 March, Hane Naoki 9-dan (B) beat So Yokoku 8-dan by resignation and on 9 March Yamada Kimio 9-dan (B) beat Cho U Meijin by resignation.
  Cho's loss meant that Hane became the only player with only one loss, so he is the closest to the challengership. However, if he loses his final-round game (against Yamada), the league could end in a multiple tie. Theoretically, up to four players could end on 5-2, but the rule is that only the two higher-ranked players qualify for a play-off. That would mean Cho U and Yoda if they both won their last-round games. The conclusion is that Hane's position is not quite as advantageous as it appears: he really needs to win his final game, too.
  Two other players, Cho Sonjin and O Rissei, have joined O Meien in losing their places.
  All the games in the last round will be played on 30 March.

  Two games were played in the 31st Meijin League on 9 March, and both were won by Kansai Ki-in players. In one, Imamura Toshiya 9-dan finally picked up his first win by defeating Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan; Imamura had black and won by 4.5 points.
In the other, Sakai Hideyuki 7-dan (B) pulled off an upset win over Han Zenki 7-dan, beating him by half a point.
  Thanks to Kobayashi's loss, Takao now has the sole lead in the league.

The 5th CSK Cup will be held in Beppu from 1 to 3 May. The members of the four teams competing are listed below.
  Japan) Yamashita Keigo, Takao Shinji, Kono Rin, Yoda Norimoto, Yuki Satoshi.
  Korea) Yi Ch'ang-ho, Yi Se-tol, Ch'oe Ch'eol-han, Pak Yeong-hun, Ko Keun-t'ae.
  China) Chang Hao, Ding Wei, Gu Li, Kong Jie, Xie He.
  Chinese Taipei) Cho U, O Rissei, O Meien, Han Zenki, Chen Shiyuan.

  According to the new promotion system, the top prize-money-winners from 1-dan to 6-dan earn promotions. The promotions based on 2005 results were announced recently; the actual promotions are effective as of 1 April.

To 7-dan: Takano Hideki (only one 6-dan is promoted by this system)
To 6-dan: Mochizuki Kenichi, Kuwamoto Shinpei
To 5-dan: Ms. Kato Keiko, Ko Reibun
To 4-dan: Oba Junya, Mitani Tetsuya
To 3-dan: Anzai Nobuaki, Ms. Xie Yimin
To 2-dan: Ri Ishu, Ando Kazushige.

  In a game in the final preliminary section of the 45th Judan tournament, played on 2 March, Michael Redmond 9-dan (W) beat Ogata Masaki 9-dan by resignation.

  Yamashita Keigo has a title again. Two months after losing his Tengen title, he has made a comeback in the number one title, winning the Kisei from the player who took it from him two years ago.
  In the fourth game of the 30th Kisei title match, played at the Hotel Nikko Kumamoto on 22 and 23 February, Yamashita (W) defeated Hane Naoki Kisei by 2.5 points. The game ended at 18:28 p.m. on the second day after 243 moves. Hane has four minutes of his time allowance of eight hours left and Yamashita 29 minutes.
  The game made an interesting start, with Hane playing a move that Rin Kaiho, who was on the spot as the referee, had played 30 years ago. Yamashita made a good counter and gained a slightly favourable result. The game continued with Yamashita building thickness. On move 49, Hane made an invasion that left his group a little weak. That let Yamashita take the initiative; he made effective use of his thickness and kept a small lead to the end of the game.
  Like the second game, this was a very satisfying win for Yamashita. In this match, he played better with white than with black; in fact, as he commented in a victory interview, both the first and third games were bad for him and could have been losses. However, his tenacious resistance played a role in turning those games around. He seems to have completely recovered from the slump he was in at the end of last year, which is a good omen for his upcoming Judan challenge.

  On the same day (Japanese time) that Arakawa Shizuka won Japan's first and only gold medal of the winter Olympics, another milestone was reached in the go world, though it did not attract as much national attention as the skating victory.
  In the final game of the 7th Nong Shim Spicy Noodles Cup, Yoda Norimoto defeated Yi Ch'ang-ho of Korea to score Japan's first (actually the first non-Korean) victory in this team tournament. Japan had started the final round, held in Shanghai, of the tournament in an unfavourable position, with only one player left to two each for Korea and China, but Yoda saved the day by winning three games in a row. The final game was the 17th encounter between Yoda and Yi Ch'ang-ho; winning it gave Yoda a lead of 9-8. This was Yi's first loss ever in the Nong Shim Cup.

The Shanghai Round
  Game 11 (21 Feb.). Cho Han-seung 8-dan (Korea) (B) d. Chang Hao 9-dan (China) by resig.
  Game 12 (22 Feb.). Yoda Norimoto 9-dan (Japan) (W) d. Cho by resig.
  Game 13 (23 Feb.). Yoda (W) d. Kong Jie 7-dan by resig.
  Game 14 (24 Feb.). Yoda (B) d. Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) by resig.

  O Meien, a former Honinbo, has come on hard times in the league, losing five games in a row and becoming the first player to lose his league place. His fifth loss came on 23 February; taking white, he lost by resignation to So Yokoku 8-dan. The latter improved his score to 3-2, so he has a good chance of staying in the league.

  In our first report this year, we claimed that Michael's game against Cho U was his first of the year, but we missed two games he played in the 15th Ryusei Cup early in January. He split these, defeating Ito Yoji 9-dan, but losing to Hisajima Kunio 9-dan.
  We also neglected to mention in our previous report that defeating Yata Naoki 9-dan earned Michael a place in the main section of the 54th Oza tournament.