History of Topics 2008

  Hane Naoki's challenge for the 63rd Honinbo title seemed to be on the point of ending prematurely when he started with three straight losses. His play was lacklustre and his usual tenacity was missing. However, that started to change when he faced and survived his first kadoban (a game that can lose a series). After he had saved three of them, there was no doubt that he was back in top form.
  With the score level at 3-all, the seventh game was held at the Akakura Sightseeing Hotel in the hot spring of Akakura, located in Myoko City in Niigata Prefecture on 22 and 23 July. Since it was the final game, the nigiri (in which the players draw for colours) was held again and Hane drew black.
  A difficult centre fight started on the afternoon of the first day. Takao seemed to have the advantage, but on the second day Hane played a brilliant tesuji, an atetsuke, that enabled him to seize the initiative. A ko fight that started soon after ended disastrously for Takao, causing him to fall so far behind in territory that his only remaining option was to attack and kill Hane's large centre group. However, killing large groups is usually possible only when you can make a double or splitting attack, which was not the case here. At 6:30 p.m., Takao ran out of options for attacking the group, so he resigned. At this moment, Hane won his first Honinbo title and rejoined the ranks of the titleholders after two and a half years in the 'wilderness' (we're referring just to top-seven titles here). Hane is the first player from the Central Japan or Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in to win the Honinbo title.

The four stars of the 21st century
  In the new century, Japanese go has been dominated by a group dubbed 'the four Deva kings', a Buddhist term popularly used to mean 'the four top stars'. (The term, shitenno, refers to four warrior guardians who protect the Buddhist laity by guarding the four points of the compass. Fierce-looking statues of them can usually be found in Buddhist temples in Japan, often standing beside the altar and trampling a demon underfoot.) Hane's success shows that he and the other three members of the group, Takao, Cho U, and Yamashita, who are all around 30 years of age, remain a dominant force. Recently, Kono Rin's consistent success in the Tengen title has led to suggestions that the group be expanded to five. It remains to be seen whether Iyama Yuta, who is just 19, will be able to break their virtual monopoly on the titles.

The 63rd Honinbo Title Match
'Miraculous fightbacks' in Japanese tournament go
  The first comeback from a 0-3 deficit in a title match was staged by Rin Kaiho in 1973; his feat was dubbed a 'miraculous fightback'. Rin did it one more time, but the term has really become associated with the name of Cho Chikun, who did it three times.
  There's no denying that it's an extraordinary recovery to come back from three straight losses, but the interesting point is that only once has the player winning the 4th to 6th games failed to win the 7th. That was Kobayashi Satoru, when he challenged Cho U for the 30th Meijin title in 2005. Three successive failures to win a game that would clinch a title would put enormous pressure on the player who started out with three straight wins.

1. Rin Kaiho vs. Ishida Yoshio: 12th Meijin title match, 1973
2. Cho Chikun vs. Fujisawa Shuko: 7th Kisei title match, 1982
3. Rin vs. Cho Chikun: 38th Honinbo title match, 1983
4. Cho Chikun vs. Otake Hideo: 9th Meijin title match, 1984
5. Cho Chikun vs. Kobayashi Koichi: 47th Honinbo title match, 1992
6. Hane Naoki vs. Takao Shinji: 63rd Honinbo title match, 2008