Life In 19x19

Not exactly what you asked for but, during the late 1930s, evening editions of the Chosun Ilbo often featured a sunjang game. Here is for instance a game played between 蔡極文 and 柳鎭河, that I converted into a sgf file. It was published in fourteen installments from March 29, 1936 to April 15, 1936 ...

It was included in the download. Look for a file named "gra-index".

I hope you'll enjoy GR has much as I do!

The first issues are a bit...rough. Most notably, the English terminology is not always the one we're used to but that somehow adds to the charm. It's interesting to witness (part of) the history of Western go being written in real time.

In the early 1980's in Japan I bought a two-volume set of commented pro vs. pro handicap games, Pro vs Pro Actual handicap Games, ( プロ 対 プロ 置碁実戦譜 ) published by Sankaido. There are games at hndicaps from two stones to nine stones, e.g a seven stone game between Miyamoto 9-dan and Shiraishi 9-dane ...

A list of commented pro-ama handicap games in the Go Review up to the April, 1973 issue (Kiseido has published an index for the reamining issues). Ranks and names are mostly as given in the GR.

Takagawa Kaku 9d - Kobayashi Chizuko ama (hcp 9) GR1961-01
Takagawa Kaku 9d - Yokota Kisaburo 4d ama (hcp ...

Somehow related... Professional handicap games. That I know of, there's a book through Utopian on pro handicap, and some games peppered along Go World (the Sekiyama-Michi series comes to mind), plus some odd games in the big books (Invincible; Itinéraire d'un maître de Go), but there's not much ...

Sumire lost her game against Feng Yunjia 1p in the Chinese League.

I haven't put the game into Katago yet but it seems to me that the turning point was move 126. I was fully expecting white to come back to the center (G8 maybe?).

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50 ...

Thanks, kupus! The post by Jon Fairbairn was a very interesting read.

Sumire won her game against Xu Haizhe 2p in the Chinese league: https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98418

Some pictures here. If I remember correctly, Sumire played her first two games online but this time she travelled to China.

Mixed results yesterday for Japanese players in the 3rd round of the 6th Wu Qingyuan Cup.

Fujisawa Rina won against Yu Zhiying https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98405
Ueno Asami lost against Choi Jeong https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98406
Nyu Eiko lost against Fang Ruoxi https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98407

Japanese players went 3-0 in the 2nd round of the 6th Wu Qingyuan Cup.

Fujisawa Rina (w) won against Wang Chenxing https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98399
Ueno Asami (b) won against Gao Xing (nice reversal) https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98400
Nyu Eiko (w) won against Yu Lijun https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98401 ...

Japanese players just went 2-1 in the 1st round of the 6th Wu Qingyuan Cup:

Sumire (b) lost against Wu Yimin https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98392
Fujisawa Rina (w) won against Li Xiaoxi https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98393
Nyu Eiko (w) won against Tang Jiawen https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98394

What I wonder about is how on earth do people outside of Asia improve at Shogi with no online material in English, (...) I have the same question about european go players in the 1960s/1970s. Many of them became strong dan players fast, at a time when resources were rather scarce.
I guess there is ...

Thanks you, John, for your long answer!
The interplay of the factors you mention certainly helps me in understanding what may be going on. I must admit, for instance, that I had never considered the economic implications for the sponsors (I naively thought the players used their own outfits) or how ...

That's a pity. I wish more go players would wear it for title matches.

I found this article about shogi pros wearing kimonos. Apparently, there is no rule about it, it's just something they do.
(...)
There is no official rule that players should wear Kimono for title matches. Nevertheless, most ...