29 August
Iyama Yuta won his second consecutive Gosei title. Iyama and Kono Rin 9p making his first Gosei challenge, played for the final game of the 38th Gosei title match (best-of-five competition) on 23 August 2013 at the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka. Taking white, Iyama beat Kono by 2.5 points after 277 moves. He still keeps the quintuple crown: Kisei, Honinbo, Tengen, Oza and Gosei.
Kono seemed to have the match all wrapped up when he swept to a 2-0 lead, but Iyama made an extraordinary comeback, taking the next three games to defend the title.
Kono could not get his first Gosei title.
The full results of the series are given as follows:
Game 1: 6 July 2013 Kono (B) won by resignation
Game 2: 22 July 2013 Kono (W) won by resignation
Game 3: 26 July 2013 Iyama (W) won by 1.5 points
Game 4: 9 August 2013 Iyama (B) won by resignation
Game 5: 23 August 2013 Iyama(W) won by 2.5 points
In the playoff match to decide the challenger of the 38th Meijin title to Yamashita Keigo, held at the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka on 5 August 2013, Iyama (B) beat Kono Rin 9p by resignation.
So in 2013 Iyama will play for all 7 major titles’ matches (Kisei, Meijin, Honinbo, Tengen, Oza, Gosei and Judan) for the first time in a Japanese go history.
The first game of the 38th Meijin title match will be held on 5 September 2013 in Tokyo. Kono could not get his first challenge to Meijin title match.
It was the first time for Japan to win the World Youth Goe Championship. The 30th
World Youth Goe Championship was held in Prague from 14 to 18 August 2013.
Shibano Toramaru (13 year old) and Seki Kohtaro (11 year old) are representative players from Japan and both players are current insei students of the Nihon Ki-in Tokyo. Seki won the tournament for U12, defeating Li Yupei (China) at the final game and Shibano took second place in the tournament for U16.
The 59th Europe go congress was held from 26th July to 8 August in Olsztyn, Poland.
Mitani Tetsuya 7-dan pro was sent to the congress from The Nihon Ki-in to teach European players. According to Mitani, he gave simultaneous games and commentaries to the participants for 10 hours a day, but he enjoyed teaching them a lot. Besides Mitani 7p, Yuho 6-dan pro and Ohashi 6-dan pro privately visited the congress and enjoyed communications with the European go players.
