Just saw on igo-kisen that the challenger for the 35th Meijin title has been decided. A bit unexpectedly, it is not Cho U - who lost his title of Meijin last year against Iyama Yuta 9d - but Takao Shinji who won his game (by resignation) against Yuki Satoshi 9d, while Cho U lost to Ogata Masaki 9d (by 2,5 points). Both Cho and Takao were tied before the last round but as I understand it, Cho would have been the challenger if he had won his game.

The first game of the title match will be played on September 1st and 2nd in Osaka. The rest of the matches haven't been scheduled yet.

I'm a bit sad that it will not be Iyama-Cho for the third year in a row, as this constellation produced some great games. But as I also like Takao and think that with his thick style of playing there will be a lot of fun, too - so it will be an interesting match. Although I like Takao and his style of playing, as a fan of Iyama's I do hope that he will be able to defend his title! The results of their previous games speak in Iyama's favour, he won 8 out of 9 games.

What do you think? Who has better chances? Are you looking forward to seeing the games?

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I think Iyama has the favor. Usually younger player is more ambitious and has more motivation (like collecting money to propose his girlfriend :p)... I'm definitely looking forward for the match

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My personal go blog. Covering tournaments, tsumegos, and interesting games http://unlimitedgo.blogspot.com

I would say it's fairly even or slightly in favor of Iyama, but Mr. Kin's go page says Iyama has an 8-1 advantage in games the two of them played.

Edit: I read the initial post then came back and responded--didn't remember that Ember had already posted this stat.

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Occupy Babel!

Does only Japan have 2-day games anymore?

I'm pretty sure this is the case. What I don't know is what the time limits are for most Chinese and Korean titles. Just as important is what the time limits are for prelims and league games are, since players train with those in mind.

And the idea that time limits affect not just the quality of play but also the style is really very mundane. Short games often reward chaotic fighting, whereas long games often favor a thick game based on honte (sound familiar?).

The extent to which that observed fact accounts for differences in the international titles is a very speculative question, one that I'm not going to even guess about. I think to be able to comment, you'd have to be able to analyze and compare professional games at a high level.

Edit: searching around, I see that the korean baduk league is broadcast live, which certainly suggests a fast game, maybe 30 secs/move or 45 minutes per player or something. http://www.xs4all.nl/~rongen17/KBS/league.html

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Occupy Babel!

Guys, please, could we move the discussion elsewhere if further discussion is needed? I thought we might discuss the upcoming games of the 35th Meijin title match (and any info related to the match) in this thread and not if this match or even japanese Go is worth watching... I was on the point of writing this 2 days ago, but then this whole ridiculous discussion thankfully stopped. So now, if anyone wants to discuss the topic of "worthiness" of japanese Go any further: please open a new thread. It would be great - in case this happens - if a moderator could move the corresponding posts from this thread to the new thread as they have nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

So I hope that starting from now, there will only be match-related posts in here and we'll have a good time discussing the games with whoever enjoys them, too, and wants to join in.

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Yes Sir! Just out of curiosity, what match related posts are we supposed to limit ourselves to between now and when the games actually start in September?

I mean, is it premature to discuss who might win the nigiri?

As requested, I moved the side discussion into a new thread:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1365

If you want to discuss the 35th Meijin Match, please use this thread. If you want to talk about the differences between CKJ go popularity, please use the other thread.

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be immersed

How very funny... Yeah, maybe it was a little too early to post that, but if you had read my first post you would remember that I gave the news that this day only the challenger was yet decided and you would also remember the question I posed at the end.
Besides, I already thought that the thread might be more interesting when the first match started a month later, that was why I posed the question (of course I also wanted to know what the opinion of the community is) and we could collect all the games here and not like one thread per game or something like this, I think we already had that. Maybe interviews could be posted here or things like that if somebody has good sources and / or is willing to translate a bit.

Sorry if this sounds a bit unnerved, but I'm going through tough times right now which threw me a bit off balance.


Thanks a lot, Kirby! Went to bed yesterday and everything was still as before and now (it is a little past 8 in the morning) they already wrote 3 pages... wow. Well, I'm going to read them now. Thanks again!

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[sgf-full]http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=331[/sgf-full]

The first day has finished: the above are the first 82 moves. Notably, the opening was played very quickly through move 14. Takao played black and made the sealed move.

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Occupy Babel!

Sweet. Another game I'm going to need to look at.

One thing I didn't realize until I looked it up during last night's game is that Takao hasn't won that many of the big 7 tournaments. He won the Honinbo in 2005-2007, the Meijin in 2006, and the Judan in 2008. Since I started watching tournaments in 2007, I had the mistaken impression that he was more successful than that.

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Occupy Babel!

Oh my gosh, only five titles. What an unsucessful guy...

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Yeah, he's doing fine for himself. I just had thought of him as being closer to even with Hane Naoki and Yamashita Keigo (who's won twice as many titles).

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Occupy Babel!

i'd like takao to win a title again, but yuta seems to have a better start in this game. 3 sizable corners and no shortage of central power

Thanks for posting the game!

I had a short look at the game one hour ago before I had to go to work, I can't tell who might win.. White's group in the upper left was cut off, black below that group was able to connect to the black group above... I don't like that. But white got a sweet near-territory at the left side and some prey to chase in the middle... So maybe white IS a bit better off?

I agree with wossname that I liked white's position after the first day better. Don't know what happened since one hour ago and I can't look at the actual game now, but I hope it will be exciting so we will have a good game to watch / replay / study.

I'm looking forward to study this game and of course to hear the result!


EDIT: Just found this live commentary on the game here: http://www.asahi.com/igo/meijin/OSK201009020006.html It is in Japanese but at least one could follow the game through the diagrammes if there is no other way.

EDIT 2: Just heard that Iyama Yuta won the game by 6,5 points!

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I watched the game on WBaduk and IGS.

Heres the total game, white is Yuta, Takao is black.


End result is, W+6,5

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Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)

Who know when they play the second game?

I believe they play the second game between the 16th and 17th of September.

The schedule looks like this:
1. 09/01 - 09/02 (Yuta won by 6.5)
2. 09/16 - 09/17
3. 09/22 - 09/23
4. 10/06 - 10/07
5. 10/13 - 10/14
6. 10/28 - 10/29
7. 11/04 - 11/05

The next game starts soon, at 9:00 AM Tokyo Time, or 8PM EST, or you can look up your local time (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/). It should be broadcast on IGS, and also WBaduk, I think?

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Occupy Babel!