The preliminaries and challengers tournament for the next Tengen & Oza has come to a conclusion. and the preliminaries for the Juudan is also coming to a close.

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

He's ON FIRE!!!. Leading 3-0 in Meijin, won challenger spots for Tengen and Oza. Road to the Grand Slam is near!

That'll be quite a day if it actually happens.

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Slava Ukraini!

I'm a huge fan of him, actually he's the only player i watch consistently, i try to mimic him, from how the way he places his stones to his style, but it's a pity that he's not participating in international tournaments. I'd prefer he had fewer japanese titles and better results in the international scene.

I would like to see him win all 7 titles at once. Maybe someone will do it someday...

Maybe part of the reason we want to see him win all of the major titles is because we believe assume that he will then pay more attention to international tournaments. If that assumption is correct, it's an interesting plan...

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

It's always hard to compare to this year by Sakata, "In 1964, Sakata became the first person to hold both the Meijin and the Honinbo titles simultaneously and won seven titles (with a game record of 29-2)."

http://senseis.xmp.net/?SakataEio

It doesn't work like that. Japanese sponsors pour more money into the game than Korean or Chinese sponsors. In return they expect every strong pro to take part in their events. Individual players generally don't get to pick and choose which events they go in for. Politicking at a high level outside go would be need to override that, and that would create huge obligations.

Given that, a player is locked into a lot of events. If he does very well, like Iyama, and gets involved in title matches, a huge amount of his life is accounted for. A typical top title game involves travel to far-flung parts of Japan, with pre-match parties and meet-the-fans sessions, the game itself can take two days. With travel, preparation and recuperation, it is probably safe to allow a week per game. Not to mention extra time attending the award ceremony if he wins the tile, or trips to the Honinbo cemeteries, etc. If a player is involved in seven title matches, he is already using about half the year on those title matches alone. Then he has obligations to smaller sponsors, e.g. NHK, Ricoh Pair Go. Even if a small window can be found among all that, plus seeing his family, having a holiday, keeping fit, etc, there is no guarantee that the available window will match the dates of the international fixtures. Even if he goes into a slump under all that pressure, he is seeded the following year into the final of all these events.

The upshot is that when a player is at his peak (e.g. winning all the major titles) he is almost certain to find it too difficult to make a genuine commitment to international play. It would work for him only when he has been in a slump (by his standards) long enough to have time on his hands.

It's very different for Korean and Chinese players. Apart from shorter games, they have a big incentive to play in international events as the money there is usually much bigger than at home. Although the reverse is true for the Japanese, that's probably not the main factor for them: obligation to sponsors is the No. 1 priority. If a sponsor has stuck with your game for 70 or 60 years (Honinbo, NHK, Oza) you don't really have an alternative.

If there was pressure, from fans or politicians, to welch on those obligations in order to seek a few moments of international glory, the long-suffering sponsors would probably welcome the chance to get out rather quickly, and then even we amateurs would suffer. And our game would have to resort to the messy confusion that is so typical of chess.

It's worth holding a candle for Japanese go.

This is why the loss of Fujitsu and Toyota/Denso is really painful right now. I think if these were around, Iyama would be playing.

Iyama played in the last Nongshim Cup at least. He beat Park Jungwhan and Mi Yuting, before losing to Kim Jiseok. Goratings.org has him at #5 in the world now, implying that if he would probably go far in international tournaments. The second best Japanese player on that list is Kono Rin at #30.

Iyama defends the Meijin title. This should be 14 wins in a row and mostly against the top level competition.

A couple more years and he could get honorary big three.

Does anyone know the result of yesterday's Oza-sen first match? Go News doesn't have it yet, nor does go4go.net.

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Todd K. Pedlar
Associate Professor of Physics, Luther College
Decorah, IA

Oh, never mind... the date listed at the Go News (http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/jp/oza.html) site for the Oza final is wrong... looks like 10/20 is now the date of the first match.

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Todd K. Pedlar
Associate Professor of Physics, Luther College
Decorah, IA

Iyama is getting awfully close. To have a grand slam, he needs to

1) Defeat Yu Zhengi on January 21st, so he can challenge for the Judan.
2) Defeat Yamashita Keigo in the Kisei (he now leads 1-0).
3) Defeat Ida Atsushi in the Judan.

He's a big favorite for each one of three, but that's still three chances to miss it.

Unrelated note: it was announced that Iyama lost a game late last year. Probably the NHK cup (http://www.usgo.org/news/2015/12/the-po ... in-league/)? We won't know until it broadcasts on TV.

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Occupy Babel!

News that he lost to Kono Rin in the NHK already leaked on blogs in Japan.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Well, there goes spoilers for two games right there.

Surely will Iyama participate the Ing Cup this year? It is held every 4 years.

I hope so! The winner's prize is more than the Kisei so the "international tournament prizes are less than Japanese ones and he's just following the money" excuse/reason doesn't hold up here.

Yes, but not annoying the sponsors of the big domestic ones is still there. I'm guessing a lot will still depend on schedule.

The Japanese sponsors really need to learn to be flexible. I notice that one top Taiwanese player has to give up his right to play the GLOBIS Cup because the conflicting schedule with the Ing Cup (he made good progress in Taiwan's qualifying events on both tournaments).