High level performance by players at an advanced age is not unheard of. Fujisawa Hideyuki won the first Kisei title (1977) at age 52 and held it for six consecutive terms. His opponent in the first match was Hashimoto Utaro, who was 77! His challengers included Rin Kaiho, Otake Hideo, Ishida Yoshio, Kato Masao, all at peak level. I think Cho Hunhyun played in title matches in Korea well into his middle age.

Not sure why you are picking on Japan - it's the same everywhere.

To be sure, the trend is as you say, but I think (without checking) that you'll find Cho Chikun won several titles at age 50-51 (Judan etc). Cho Hun-hyeon won the Kiseong around age 50. These would be around ten years ago. Before that, Hashimoto won something around age 64 and Fujisawa Hideyuki at almost 70.

I think the oldest international winner may be Rin Kaiho (48, Fujitsu, 1990 or so).

Of course these players were ancient fossils, not old. If you restrict it to "old" as in uberdude's definition you get a slightly more balanced picture.

Remember uderdude and bugcat: "God is dead" - Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead." - God.

Let's have a little bit less ageism, here - especially from the teenyboppers

What were we talking about again?

On 2018-10-04 Mrs Sugiuchi became the oldest pro, male or female, to win an official game (in the Judan, against Endo Yoshifumi). To slightly misquote uderdude, she beats up young men for a living.

At 91, she is already the oldest active pro, male or female (ahead of the now retired Kubouchi Shuchi, usually given as 90 in the old-fashioned style but really 89).

The late Mr Sugicuhi was the third oldest man, behind Hashimoto Utaro, but he was the oldest in the Nihon Ki-in.

I should have called Gu Li "older" not "old" eh John?

On 2018-11-06, Mrs Sugiuchi won another game in the preliminary of Kisei tournament.

https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/live/room/14787/1/10380508

Sugiuchi Kazuko just beat Mizokami Tomochika 9-dan in the Kisei tournament - I believe she was leading all the way - just check how she attacked - quite amazing.

https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/live/board/14944

She won again!

Mrs Sugiuchi just keeps winning. She is now in the main stage of Japanese women's Honinbo tournament, after beating Kato Keiko today.

https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/live/room/15529/1/11459710

Mrs Sugiuchi is 92 tomorrow (6 March 2019) and the day after that she appears in the final section of the 38th Women's Honinbo. Her opponent will be Osawa Narumi, who is less than half her age and half her rank. The game is scheduled for broadcast on Yugen no Ma.

That doesn't say much

When I really think about it, it's really crazy to be still this strong and active in competition at this age.

Owawa Narumi won the game. There is a an article with a short video from this game: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/201903 ... 71000.html

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Sorin - 361points.com

One possible rival to match Mrs Sugiuchi's competitive longevity was her younger sister Kusunoki Teruko. But she has just announced her retirement from 31 March, aged 79.

If I understand this tweet correctly, Mrs. Sugiuchi reached the landmark of 600 wins (?).
Source

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Yes, on this day (5/22) five years ago, when she was still but a young 87 year old woman.

Ooops... What did they dig that out for then..? ^^; Thanks for clarifying!

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Sugiuchi Kazuko won a game this month against Yokota Hinano (born 2003). A mere 76-year gap!

https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98199

Mrs Sugiuchi is the subject of this week's Tsuru-Rin column in Go Weekly. This column takes famous standard four-characters phrases and highlights a pro in connection with these.

The phrase pinned on Mrs Sugiuchi was 松柏之寿 (Shohaku no ju). It's really a Chinese phrase and alludes to a poem by Bai Juyi of the Tang dynasty. It's often used on lucky charms or inscribed on bracelets or lockets because it expresses long life (寿 - which happens to come in her given name: 寿子), as exemplified by the two trees pine and cypress, both evergreens. Mrs Sugiuchi is 96 and still playing, which of course Tsuru and Rin point up, perhaps a little ungraciously as the pine imagery is often linked with skin wrinkled like the bark of Japanese pine. (Nor is the other tree the kind you can romantically tie a yellow ribbon round.)

They also pick up on the fact that her own name contains a tree: 杉 or cryptomeria. But it was her husband's name really.

The chatty duo rather missed a trick, I thought, because they skipped the allusion to Bai Juyi. He is a well known and popular poet even in Japan, and he should be popular with all go players because he wrote several poems with go as a theme. His most famous work is Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which does not relate directly to go, but it's about the love affair of the go-mad Xuanzong Emperor and his consort Yang Guifei. It was this fair lady who may have invented a piece of advice we all use. She had a pet monkey which she fondled as she watched the emperor play. If she detected from His Majesty's frown that he was losing, she would let the monkey loose onto the board, scattering all the stones. Hence the proverb: the monkey jump is worth 361 points.

It's also worth noting the Chinese allusion because the 柏 in the saying is a faux ami. It is not the Japanese 柏 (Quercus dentata - an oak) but the Chinese 柏 (Platycladus orientalis, a cypress conifer). Japanese makes the distinction outside poetry by referring to their oak as kashiwa and the Chinese tree as kogashiwa or kotegashiwa).

Bai Juyi does not use the three binome in quite the same format as the saying, or in a go connection. It comes in his 效陶潜体 suite of 16 poems (Poems in imitation of the style of the very famous pre-Tang Daoist poet Tao Qian = Tao Yuanming).

The relevant part of Poem 1 in the suite is:

不动者厚地，不息者高天。
无穷者日月，长在者山川。
松柏与龟鹤，其寿皆千年。
嗟嗟群物中，而人独不然。

The solid earth does not move. The high heavens never rest.
The sun and moon traverse endlessly, The mountains and rivers are everlasting.
Pines, cypresses, tortoises and cranes all live long - a thousand years.
But, alas, for Man alone, amidst all these things, the same is not so.

You can see where everlasting regret comes into the picture!

Note: But no regrets here! This post has been made to promote the bright cultural side of go, as opposed to the dark AI side. No tortoises or cranes - or humans - were harmed in the making of it.

A bit more for the tree huggers among us (King Charles III even?).

By chance, I was writing something on Engelbert Kaempfer this morning, and I recalled that he was the first westerner to record the tree Ginkgo biloba (the maidenhair tree). Dutchman Kaempfer stayed in Japan for two years, 1690 ~ 1692, and his interest in flora japonica was mainly as a physician. He had no recorded connection with go, but gingko is used for decent-quality traditional go boards in Japan. Kaempfer brought back some ginkgo seeds which were planted in a botanical garden in Utrecht. The resulting trees have been said to have survived to the 21st century. Does anyone know about them? At the very least it's another example of trees long outliving Man.

Ginkgo itself is an interesting word. Kamepfer appears to have taken the least usual Japanese reading of 銀杏, that is 'ginkyo' (it is normally 'icho', but when referring to the gingko nut 'ginnan' is also used). It is assumed he wrote that as ginkjo, with j being used for y as in several European languages. But some of his works were first published in London, and as g can sometimes be pronounced as j (as in judgment), it was perhaps changed by an editor. The consequences are just as long living!

This is the funniest post I've read on this message board

Mrs Sugiuchi lost a game on the 15th against Takeuchi Kosuke in the 62nd Judan.

She invaded deeply at 89 but couldn't live with her group.

https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98307