This has become an unexpected topic. Let me add this:

https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/english/topics/12/topics2012_09.htm

Kobayashi Koichi's ceremony of his honorary titles when he turned 60. Obviously, he had won them many years before.

This is where I read the rules to get the honorary titles. 5 in a row or 10 overall and wait, OR 10 in a row and there you are.

Also, it is published in the NK website, with no reference to the sponsors, and with the same rules to all titles. Other than taking another name for the Honinbo, it's the same for all of them.

John's explanation raised another question, at least for me. The NK uses the term "honorary" in English. Until now, me too. But in Japanese, Cho Chikun is referred as 名誉名人 (Meiyo Meijin) and 25世本因坊治勲, with 世=lifetime, 本因坊=Honinbo, 治勲= Chikun. That is, the words are not the same. Kobayashi Koichi is Meiyo Kisei, Meijin and Gosei. Iyama, in his NK profile, is just "regular" Meijin, Honinbo, Gosei, Oza. My point is that perhaps the meaning of the title is slightly different, but the translation, how the NK calls it in English, is the same. That would be the reason for confusion.

As for calling yourself 25th Honinbo or not, or calling that too early, I don't see it happening in proper Japanese etiquette. You introduce yourself with your name, other people add -san, -sensei, -meijin or whatever. And you don't tell other people how to address to you. But you don't want to make a mistake with this.

In English there's a distinction between 'honorary Honinbo' and 'Honorary Honinbo'. One's a description, one's a title.

And if you really want to show off, it's 'an honorary X', not 'a honorary X'.

And and - it's 'honour' not 'honor' in the civilised world

He was one game away from becoming the challenger for the 45th Kisei but ranked by unofficial ratings he appears to be in a demotion spot in the league (tough being number 7 by rating). Anyway, beating Iyama is about 1/4 of the way to the challenger decision tournament. It is possible to qualify with few as 3 wins but 4 wins almost guarantees the 2nd spot, it depends on the exact tie breakers.

The unofficial ratings predict 24.4% win rate for Takao in this game. Somehow this seems unrealistically low to me I wonder what the win rate will be in the May edition.

Game 1 of the 77th Honinbo title match between Iyama Yuta and Ichiriki Ryo started yesterday. The sponsor Mainichi Newpaper has a special section for this 77th Honinbo title match: https://mainichi.jp/honinbo/2022. Move 80 was sealed.

The on-stream AI did not like when Black (Iyama) moved out with 55, though the commentators were showing variations involving a jump out. I thought it was exciting. The game is already supposed to be difficult for Black but it looks like there will be plenty of fighting to do today.

I saw some new (to me) faces on the video commentary. Yamashiro Hiroshi 9-dan was there. He's had 15 titles and checking Sensei's I think they are not the major titles but the Nagoya branch tournament. Female player Sakakibara Fumiko from the Kansai Kiin was there also. And then Takao Shinji was there as scheduled. Tsukuda Akiko was with him -- she seems familiar. Hane Naoki showed up at some point. A bunch of people just wandering in.

The stream had a short video clip of the shrine/wedding venue. It was rainy.

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20220510/k ... 40/293000c


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One of the articles mentions the players visiting a monument to the 1st Honinbo, Sansa. I was doing a search and came upon a neat blog showing the grave sites of the Honinbo: https://hotyuweb.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-393.html



The blog also shows a picture of the building and plaque where the old Honinbo House used to stand before renters (accidentally?) burnt it down doing teppanyaki tricks.

I think that so many people are showing up because this edition is special.

Iyama (Honinbo Monyu) won for the 10th time last year. If he wins again, he will surpass Cho Chikun, who also won 10 times in a row.

But the challenger is Ichiriki Ryo, new Kisei and probably the toughest opponent in Japan right now.

The toughest and the best? I don't know. When Ichiriki won the Kisei, it was early to call it "a new era", IMHO. But if he took the Honinbo too, then it may be not too early.

And Shibano is starting to look like a challenger for the Meijin.

The first game of the Honinbo finished... what a game...

You can see it in youtube:

day 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxRxVZkIF3g


day 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS9kYzoU6Os

Lots of ko fights, very intense, impossible for me to know the outcome beforehand. And, in the end, there was also a half point that one player refused to play.

result:

Yeah, wow! That was a difficult game for me to follow from the middle. And much of the ko fighting happened after their main time exhausted. I was not expecting such a close game given all of the fighting.


In other news, the 2022 Go Yearbook (囲碁年鑑 "Igo Nenkan") is being published this month.

User "Allerleirauh" over at the OGS forums linked to some Tweets about that wild Honinbo match. I was wondering if it was the longest video stream yet since it was almost 12 hours long. It seemed like the 12 hour stream was causing YouTube to stutter because it was difficult to seek ahead in the video. There were lots of moves after the main time was over so maybe it was one of the longest games time-wise.

As for number of moves, apparently this was the longest Honinbo title match.
https://twitter.com/osakaigo/status/1524369681997795328
https://twitter.com/migodojo/status/1524380479104950278



As mentioned above, Takao Shinji was doing the commentary. Hane Naoki was also there, in and out, on both days. It was rainy the first day and foggy the next day. But it made for a nice photograph of Hane by 木葉健二 Konoha Kenji @kenji_konoha. https://twitter.com/kenji_konoha/status ... 8340581376



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Mainichi has provided their commentary by So Youkoku 9 dan (Su Yaoguo), who is familiar. The Nihon Kiin tournament page listed the newspaper commentator as Ogata Masaki, but So introduces himself in the comments and is listed on the page.
HTML commentary: https://mainichi.jp/honinbo/77-1spc/
SGF commentary: https://ugi.pandanet.co.jp/?key=honinbo-77-1c

Yo Seiki lost against Ichiriki Ryo in the final of the Gosei Tournament. I'm a bit bummed because I've been cheering for Yo Seiki.

But now Ichiriki Kisei has set himself in a position to fight to be on top of the Japanese Go world. If he can take the Honinbo and Gosei titles that leaves Iyama with the Meijin. I'm happy to see Ichiriki with the Kisei but still cheering for Iyama. Either way we will get great games out of them.

The Honinbo title match is scheduled through July. The Gosei is scheduled for the end of June through August. So there may be overlap but at least they will be back to back.

I'm waiting for the Ichiriki vs Iyama book to come out.

Yo Seiki lost... at some point, I thought he would win.

He was in a good position to become the challenger in the Honinbo too, and he lost it. First to Shibano, then to Ichiriki. And in the Judan, he lost 0-3.

It was discussed around here, somewhere else, that some players had the strength and skill to be strong players, but not to win titles. They lack something. Kato Masao, until "something cliked", was like that. I am wondering if Yo Seiki is like this too. He fails in the crucial moments. Perhaps it's pressure. Or how to win a won game.

About Iyama vs. Ichiriki, we are going to see a lot of them in the next few months. But I'd like to see Iyama play different players. Hopefully, Shibano will challenge for the Meijin again.