History of Topics 2010

  The best-of-three final of the 14th Samsung Masters title was played in Shanghai in mid-December. In a clash between two 27-year-old Chinese players, Kong Jie 9-dan defeated Qiu Jun 8-dan with straight wins. This gave Kong Jie his second international title, following the TV Asia Cup last June. After years of posting steady results in international tournaments, Kong seems to have made the breakthrough to the highest ranks. Qiu has also had good but unspectacular results over the years; he was unable to move up to a higher level.
  The first and second prizes are 250 million won and 50 million won (about $213,850 and $42,770).

Results:

Game 1 (15 December). Kong (W) by resignation. Game 2 (17 December). Kong (B) by resignation.

  Sun Tengyu, a 17-year-old 4-dan, secured China its seventh victory in a row when he won the annual play-off between the holders of the Chinese and Japanese Agon Kiriyama cups. The game was played in Wuzhen in Zhejiang Province, China on 9 December, and Sun, taking black, defeated Hane Naoki 9-dan by 2.5 points. Sun played thinly in the first part of the game and came under a lot of pressure, but he managed to endure and seized a chance to counterattack in the latter part of the game.
  Sun is a new face who seemingly came out of nowhere to defeat such top players as Gu Li and Piao Wenyao to win the Chinese Agon Kiriyama Cup. At the time of thisplay-off, he was ranked 45th in the Chinese rating system. Judging by the strength he has shown, he should rise very quickly.

  If Kim Chi-seok of Korea was the star of the opening round of the 11th Nong Shim Cup (see our previous report)
, Xie He 7-dan of China, who put a stop to Kim's winning run, was the star of the second round. Xie went on to win the first four games of this round, giving him five wins in a row. However, Hane Naoki saved face for Japan, which had seen its first four players eliminated, by picking up two wins at the end of this round. Perhaps he was trying to make amends for his Agon Kiriyama failure.
The final round will start on 9 March.

Pusan round:
  Game 5 (18 January). Xie He 7-dan (China) (W) beat Iyama Yuta 9-dan (Japan) by resignation.
  Game 6 (19 January). Xie (W) beat Kim Seung-chae 3-dan (Korea) by 1.5 points.
  Game 7 (20 January). Xie (B) beat Yamada Kimio 9-dan (Japan) by resignation.
  Game 8 (21 January). Xie (W) beat Yun Chun-sang 7-dan (Korea) by resignation.
  Game 9 (22 January). Hane Naoki 9-dan (Japan) (B) beat Xie by resignation.
  Game 10 (23 January). Hane (B) beat Pak Yeong-hun 9-dan (Korea) by resignation.

Players remaining:

Japan Korea China

: : :

Hane Naoki Yi Ch'ang-ho Gu Li, Chang Hao, Liu Xing

  China did best in the second round of the 8th Cheongkwanjang Cup, though both Korea and Japan managed to pick up wins. In the third round, Pak Chi-eun 9-dan won four games in a row to secure Korea its third team win. Korea has now caught up with China (the Cup was an individual tournament for the first two terms).

Round Two (Korea)
  Game 5 (20 December). Pak So-hyeon 2-dan (Korea) (W) beat Aoki Kikuyo 8-dan (Japan) by 6.5 points.
  Game 6 (21 December). Cao Youyin 3-dan (China) (W) beat Pak by resig.
  Game 7 (22 December). Cao (B) beat Umezawa Yukari 5-dan (Japan) by resig.
  Game 8 (23 December). Kim Hye-min 5-dan (Korea) (B) beat Cao by 1.5 points.
  Game 9 (24 December). Mukai Chiaki 3-dan (Japan) (B) beat Kim by resig.
  Game 10 (25 December). Song Ronghui 5-dan (China) (W) beat Mukai by 4.5 points.

Round Three
  Game 11 (1 February). Pak Chi-eun 9-dan (Korea) (B) beat Song by resignation.
  Game 12 (2 February). Pak (B) beat Suzuki Ayumi 5-dan (Japan) by resignation.
  Game 13 (3 February). Pak (B) beat Ye Gui 5-dan (China) by 3.5 points.
  Game 14 (4 February). Pak (W) beat Li He 2-dan (China) by resignation.

  The general preliminary stage of the 2nd BC Card Cup, sponsored by Korea's biggest credit company, was held in Seoul from 11 to 13 January. Twenty-three players from Japan took part, of whom four reached the final round, but no one made it into the main tournament. This was a big contrast to the extraordinary performance of Korean amateur players, five of whom overcame, in some cases, top-level professional competition to qualify for the main tournament.
  These players, however, were not pure amateurs but professional trainees (equivalent to Japanese inseis) at the Korean Paduk Association. According to Oya Koichi 9-dan, who took part in the qualifying stage, they already have the strength of top professionals. (Earlier proof of this came with the extraordinary success of Han Sang-hun, who just a couple of months after becoming professional 1-dan won a seat in the 12th LG Cup and reached the final.)
  The reason for the seeming anomaly is that there is extremely fierce competition among the 130 professional trainees, of whom only a few can become professional each year. You have to have the strength of a high-ranking professional to win out against this competition. This year, another Han, Han Tae-hee, aged 16, beat Japan's Tsuruyama Atsushi 6-dan in the final of the qualifying round, then in the first round of the main tournament defeated the top player of the last two decades, Yi Ch'ang-ho, who has won 21 world titles, in a game that lasted only 96 moves. On paper, this must count as one of the biggest upsets ever in international go.
  In view of the above, the tournament chart can be misleading. Iyama Yuta beat another `amateur', Na Hyo-en, in the first round of the main tournament; this might have seemed like an easy pairing for Iyama but would actually have been a tough game. Na is nicknamed `the second Yi Ch'ang-ho' and in the qualifying tournament he beat Yi Yeong-ku 7-dan, a 22-year-old who himself was nicknamed `the 9-dan killer' when he made his debut, and Yu Bin 9-dan of China, who has won three world titles. In the game with Iyama, Na took the lead at one stage. The really astonishing thing is that there is said to be no guarantee that Na will even qualify as a professional, so tough is the competition. It would be ironic if a player capable of beating an ex-world champion couldn't make 1-dan.
  The qualifiers through the preliminary rounds joined 11 seeded players in the main tournament. The seeded players are listed below. Most notable is the appearance of Yi Se-tol's name among the Koreans. The leave of absence he took last year was supposed to extend to the end of this year, but he changed his mind and resumed his career in January, just in time for this tourament.

Japan	) Iyama Yuta, Yamada Kimio
Korea	) Cho Hun-hyeon, Yi Se-tol, Yi Ch'ang-ho, Ch'oe Ch'eol-han, Kim Chi-seok
China	) Gu Li, Chang Hao, Kong Jie
Taiwan	) Chen Shiyuan

Some of the results to date are listed below.

First round (64 players)

(16 January)   Iyama Yuta 9-dan (Japan) (W) beat Na Hyo-en, amateur (Korea), by resignation.   Yamada Kimio 9-dan (Japan) (W) beat Zhong Wenjing 5-dan (China) by 1.5 points.   Han Tae-hee (aged 17), amateur (Korea),(W) beat Yi Ch'ang-ho 9-dan (Korea) by resignation.

Second round

(28 January)     An Cho-yeong 9-dan (Korea) (B) beat Han Tae-hee by resignation.

(31 January)     Yi Se-tol 9-dan (Korea) (W) beat Hong Seong-chi 7-dan by half a point.

(4 February)     Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 9-dan (Korea) (B) beat Yamada by resignation.

(5 February)     Niu Yutian 7-dan (China) (B) beat Iyama by resignation.     Peng Quan 7-dan (China) (W) beat Mok Chin-seok 9-dan (Korea) by resignation.     Tuo Jiaxi 3-dan (aged 18) (China) beat Heo Yeong-ho 7-dan (Korea) by resignation.

(6 February)     Kong Jie 9-dan (China) (W) beat Shi Yue 4-dan (China) by resignation.     Ding Wei 9-dan (China) (B) beat Cho Hun-hyeon 9-dan (Korea) by resignation.     Kim Chi-seok 6-dan (Korea) (W) beat Li Xianhao 2-dan (aged 14) by 2.5 points.

(7 February)     Chang Hao 9-dan (China) (W) beat Kim Hye-min 5-dan (Korea) by resignation.     Ch'oe Ch'eol-han 9-dan (Korea) beat Tan Xiao 5-dan (aged 16) (China) by resignation.     Gu Li 9-dan (China) (B) beat Zhang Li 5-dan (China).

  Our previous report took the 35th title match as far as the third game, in which Yamashita Keigo pulled off an upset to take the lead in the match.
  The fourth game was played at the Westin Hotel Awaji in Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture on 10 December. Taking black, Cho saved the kadoban, securing a resignation after just 127 moves when he captured a white group. Actually, Cho had got into trouble in the middle game and Yamashita had the initiative, but fierce play by Cho enabled him to take revenge for the upset he suffered in the previous game.
  So far, all games in the match had been won by Black (though it could be claimed that White `should' have won two of them), so the nigiri (deciding the colours by grasping a handful of stones, with the other player guessing whether the number is odd or even) became all-important for the fifth game. Yamashita won the nigiri and he won the game. It's not that simple, of course - after all, White does win very close to 50 percent of professional games - but it certainly applied to this match. Yamashita took the lead in the opening and managed to frustrate Cho's efforts to catch up. He set the seal on victory by killing a large group.
  This gave Yamashita his second Tengen title after a gap of four years.

Results:

Game One (12 November). Yamashita (B) by resignation. Game Two (19 November). Cho (B) by resignation. Game 3 (3 December). Yamashita (B) by resignation. Game 4 (10 December). Cho (B) by resignation. Game 5 (22 December). Yamashita (B) by resignation.

  Cho U has made up for his recent reverses against Yamashita Keigo (losing the Tengen title match and a Honinbo League Game in quick succession at the end of 2009) by taking the first three games of the 34th Kisei title match. He will be more than satisfied if he can trade the Tengen title for the only top-seven title he hasn't won, the Kisei, with its massive prize money.
  The opening game was held at the Hotel Royal Taipei in Taipei, Taiwan on 14 and 15 January.
With Taiwan being Cho's homeland, there was extensive coverage by the local media. Cho's parents attended the party held on the evening of the 13th. Taking white, Cho got off to a good start when Yamashita made a small strategic miscalculation fairly early in the opening. Subsequently, Yamashita was unable to exploit his opportunities to complicate the game, so the series started with a convincing win on his home turf for the challenger. Yamashita resigned after 234 moves.
  The second game was played at the Nagoya Castle Teahouse on 27 and 28 January. Playing black, Cho U took the early lead in territory, but Yamashita played solidly, storing up power. Beginning with White 70, he skilfully reduced Black's territory and made a counterattack against a black group. A perilous fight between weak groups followed. The fight became larger in scale and involved a ko fight. Cho took the initiative when he ended the ko fight by going for a trade. Late in the game, Yamashita made a mistake, so the gap widened. The game finished at 7:52 p.m. on the second day, with Cho (black) winning by 6.5 points after 342 moves.
  For the third game, the match moved to the southern island of Kyushu, being held at the Hotel Shiragiku in Beppu City, Oita Prefecture on 3 and 4 February. After a large-scale struggle involving an approach-move ko, Cho (white) defeated Yamashita by 8.5 points. The game lasted 303 moves.
  Yamashita's tenure as Kisei - one more term and he would qualify for the title of Honorary Kisei when he turned 60 - seems to be in grave danger of termination. He will face a kadoban in the next game, scheduled for 18 and 19 February.

The 34th Kisei Title Match

  By defeating Umezawa Yukari 2-0 in the 13th Women's Kisei title match, Xie Yimin (aged 20) has become the first player to hold the top three women's titles simultaneously. Xie has held the Women's Honinbo title, the top-ranked women's title, since 2007 and the Women's Meijin, which is next, since 2008. This was Xie's seventh title. She is still only 20, so she could become the female counterpart of Cho Chikun in accumulating titles.
  The match got off to a start on 21 January, being played at the Hotel Sun Life Garden in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Xie lived up to her reputation as an aggressive player, attacking boldly with black. Umezawa did her best to cope with the nonstop attacks, but in the end Xie's momentum was too much for her. Xie forced a resignation after 165 moves.
  The second game was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya, Tokyo on 28 January. Taking white, Xie won by resignation after 230 moves.
  Xie was born in Taiwan on 15 November 1989. She became professional 1-dan at the Nihon Ki-in in 2004. In 2007, aged 17, she became the youngest player to win a women's title, when she successfully challenged for the Women's Honinbo title.

  Yamashita Keigo was busy at the end of the year, playing important games on 25 and 28 December (see the Honinbo League report), but he won both of them, so he probably enjoyed his New Year break. On the 25th, he met Ri Ishu 7-dan in the final of the Losers' Section of the Judan tournament. Taking black, he defeated Ri by resignation.
  This win earned Yamashita a place in the play-off with the winner of the Winners' Section, Takao Shinji, to decide the challenger to Cho U for the title. Yamashita had lost in the first round of the Winners' Section, but he then won five games in a row in the Losers' Section.
  The play-off was held at the Nihon Ki-in on 21 January. Playing black, Yamashita fought strongly in the middle game and forced Takao to resignaiton after 149 moves.
  Yamashita will be having his third crack at the Judan title: he made unsuccessful challenges to
  Cho Chikun for the 44th and 45th titles. The title match, which starts on 4 March, will be the third match in a row featuring these two; in effect, they are playing a best-of-17 in three stages.

  Mukai Chiaki 3-dan, the youngest of the three Mukai sisters, will be the first to challenge for a title. Going into the final round, held on 7 January, she and Suzuki Ayumi 4-dan were the only players in the running to win the 22nd Women's Meijin league, but Mukai had a slightly unfavourable position: she was tied with Suzuki, but, if they had both won or both lost, Suzuki would top her because of her higher ranking. However, the pseudo-tie was avoided, as Mukai won her final game and Suzuki lost. Mukai took 1st place with a score of 5-1, while Suzuki was alone in second place on 4-2.
  The title match with Xie Yimin will start in early March.

(10 December)   Yoshida Mika 8-dan (W) beat Kato Keiko 6-dan by resignation.

(7 January)   Mukai Chiaki 3-dan (W) beat Umezawa Yukari, Women's Kisei, by resignation.   Chinen Kaori 4-dan (W) beat Yoshida Mika 8-dan by resignation.   Okuda Aya 2-dan (B) beat Suzuki Ayumi 4-dan by half a point.

  Fujisawa Rina, granddaughter of the legendary Fujisawa Shuko and daughter of Fujisawa Kazunari 8-dan, has set a new record for the youngest professional in Japan. On 6 February, Rina, who is in fifth form at elementary school, qualified as a professional 1-dan at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo. When she officially begins her career, on 1 April, she will be just 11 years six months old. This lowers Cho Chikun's overall record by three months and the women's record by nearly three years (it was set by current women's champion Xie Yimin when she was 14 years four months old).
  Rina took first place in an all-play-all league in which nine players competed for a single slot for a new woman professional. This was actually the third time she had competed in the qualifying tournament.
  Rina learnt go at the age of 6 and made up her mind to become a professional when she was in first grade.Her ambition was to make it while she was still in elementary school. Every day after class her mother would take her to a go club in Shinjuku, where she would play until nine o'clock. Dinner was a lunchbox her mother prepared. Her efforts paid off. In March last year, she took fourth place in the all-Japan women's amateur championship and became an insei in April. She had become a disciple of her late grandfather, who died in May last year, but did not have many opportunities to receive direct instruction. She is proud of her grandfather but says her style is different, favouring territory rather than thickness. Her ambition is to become known in her own right, not just as `Shuko's granddaughter'.
  Rina will have to take days off school to play her tournament games. Her earnings from game fees will dwarf her schoolmates' pocket money.

  Iyama Yuta Meijin held the sole lead for quite a while in the 65th Honinbo League, but he stumbled in the fifth round, dropping a game to Yamashita Keigo Kisei. That result would made not only the winner happy but also Takao Shinji 9-dan. Takao won his own fifth-round game, so he joined a three-way tie for first place with Iyama and Yamashita.
  In the same round, Cho U suffered his third loss, so his prospects are bleak. He will have to worry about keeping his seat in the league.

Recent games:

(17 December)	Takao Shinji 9-dan (W) beat Yamashita Keigo Kisei by resignation. Cho U Judan (B) beat Takemiya Masaki 9-dan by 3.5 points. Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (B) beat Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan by resignation.
(24 December)	Iyama Yuta Meijin (B) beat Yamada Kimio 9-dan by resignation.
(28 December)	Yamashita Keigo Kisei (B) beat Cho U Judan by resignation.
(7 January)	Iyama Yuta Meijin (W) beat Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan by resignation.
(14 January)	Takao Shinji 9-dan (W) beat Takemiya Masaki 9-dan by 13.5 points. Yamada Kimio 9-dan (W) beat Yuki Satoshi 9-dan by resignation.
(4 February)	Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (W) beat Takemiya Masaki 9-dan by 10.5 points.
(11 February)	Yamashita Keigo Kisei (B) beat Iyama Yuta Meijin by resignation. Takao Shinji 9-dan (B) beat Yamada Kimio 9-dan by resignation. Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan (B) beat Cho U Judan by resignation.

  It's too early to make any predictions in the Meijin League, but Takao Shinji has made a promising start, with three straight wins. Next is Yuki Satoshi 9-dan on 2-0.

Recent games:

(10 December)   O Meien 9-dan (W) beat Ogata Masaki 9-dan by resignation.   25th Honinbo Chikun (W) beat Mizokami Tomochika 8-dan by resignation.

(7 January)   Cho U Judan (W) beat Yamada Kimio 9-dan by resignation.   Takao Shinji 9-dan (B) beat O Meien 9-dan by resignation.

(14 January)   Mizokami Tomochika 8-dan (W) beat Ogata Masaki 9-dan by 1.5 points.

(21 January)   Sakai Hideyuki 7-dan (B) beat 25th Honinbo Chikun by resignation.   Yuki Satoshi 9-dan (B) beat Cho U Judan by resignation.

(4 February)   Takao Shinji 9-dan (B) beat Mizokami Tomochika 8-dan by resignation.   25th Honinbo Chikun (W) beat O Meien 9-dan by resignation.

The 35th Meijin Challenger's League

in the chart

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

  The first of the four unseeded Japanese seats in the 23rd Fujitsu Cup went to 24th Honinbo Shuho (Ishida Yoshio). This will be his first appearance in the main tournament since 2005.
  The second seat went to Anzai Nobuaki 6-dan, who will be making his international debut. The third went to Takao Shinji 9-dan, who will be making his fifth appearance in a row and seventh overall. The final place was taken by Sakai Hideyuki 7-dan, who beat Cho Chikun by just half a point to make his Fujitsu Cup debut.


The three seeded places go to the holders of the Kisei, Meijin, and Honinbo tournaments as of September, that is, to Yamashita Keigo, Cho U, and Hane Naoki. The new Meijin, Iyama Yuta, lost to Cho Riyu 7-dan in the semifinal of the qualifying tournament on 10 December.

  For the second year in a row, Kono Rin 9-dan has won the Daiwa Securities Cup Net Igo tournament. In the final of the 5th Cup, played on 19 December, he defeated Iyama Yuta Meijin; taking black, Kono won by 1.5 points.
Cho U sets new records in reaching 700 wins
  Cho U's win over Takemiya in the Honinbo League on 17 December was the 700th of his career. Cho is the 36th player to reach his landmark, but he rewrote the record book. At 29 years ten months, he is the youngest player to reach this landmark and also the quickest (15 years eight months) and has the highest winning percentage (73.4%). His tally was 700 wins, 254 losses, 1 jigo.

  The following promotions were made based on the prize-winning list for last year. The top 6-dan is promoted and the top two 1-dans to 5-dans.

To 7-dan:	Shuto Shun
To 6-dan:	Yamamori Tadanao, Mitani Tetsuya
To 5-dan:	Suzuki Ayumi, Xie Yimin
To 4-dan:	Uchida Shuhei, Mukai Chiaki
To 3-dan:	Shiraishi Yuichi, Ohashi Naruya
To 2-dan:	Suzuki Shinji, Ida Atsushi

To 7-dan: Suzuki Yoshimichi (120 wins) (promoted on 11 December)
To 4-dan: Tominaga Takeshi (promoted on 29 January)

(10 December)   Oya Koichi 9-dan (W) beat Michael Redmond by half a point.   (Preliminary A, 49th Judan tournament)

(7 January)   Michael Redmond 9-dan (B) beat Miyazaki Ryutaro 6-dan by resignation.   (Preliminary B, 36th Meijin tournament)

(28 January)   Redmond (W) beat Miyazawa Goro 9-dan by 5.5 points.   (Preliminary A, 66th Honinbo tournament)

  Iyama Yuta has had outstanding results for several years, but this is the first time he has taken top place in this list.

1.	Iyama Yuta Meijin: 43 wins, 14 losses
2.	Ri Ishu 7-dan: 38-12; Yamashita Keigo Kisei: 38-17
4.	Cho U Judan: 35-19
5.	So Yokoku 8-dan: 33-15
6.	Shida Tatsuya 3-dan: 32-11
7.	Takao Shinji 9-dan: 31-26
8.	O Rissei 9-dan: 29-13; Kono Rin 9-dan: 29-15; Yamada Kimio 9-dan: 29-20 The top woman player was Xie Yimin, who was in equal 12th place with 25-14.

Best winning percentage

1.	Ri Ishu: 76%
2.	Iyama Yuta: 75.44%
3.	Shida Tatsuya: 74.42%

Most successive wins

1.	Cho U: 17
2.	Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan: 15