Wow, so Iyama is now defending three titles simultaneously with the Meijin, Tengen and Oza going on at the same time. But he's meeting Ichiriki in the Oza, I'm pretty sure. Yamashita is challenging him in the Tengen.

Anybody's would with that insane schedule he has to endure... For fans it's great to have so many exciting games, but it must be really exhausting as a player. I really do hope that he can win the decisive Meijin title match next Thursday / Friday and that he then can finally get a bit more rest.

What insane schedule? Iyama only has to defend his titles. He doesn't have to participate in league play or the Oteai.

Agree. One can argue that Iyama is facing somewhat more difficulty games (most of being title games and some are 2-day games), but his schedule is definitely not busy. In the past 12 months he played 56 games, which is not that many at all. In comparison, over the same period of time, Shin Jinseo played 101 games, Park Junghwan played 88, Ke Jie played 78, Ichiriki Ryo played 74.

... In the past 12 months he played 56 games, which is not that many at all. In comparison...

I am not sure that I understand the relevance of this to his schedule over the last 4 weeks.
Certainly he has a tougher situation this year than last. In 2017 the Meiji was over quickly and then he had what amounted to an extended match against Ichiriki so challenger and title holder were equally pressured by the rash of title games. If anything, Ichiriki probably had a busier schedule. This year he is being "tag-teamed" by three different opponents who rotate in and out. We were laughing about the pro-wrestling analogy over our beers last Saturday after our weekly "study" group at the Nihon Ki'in.

Iyama played a mere eight games in the past four weeks, with his title defense games making up six of those. That's a pretty leisurely pace, especially considering the caliber of his domestic opponents, none of whom rank in the top 40. Should have been a walk in the park for someone of Iyama's caliber, considering he was ranked in the world's top 5 until recently by Goratings.

Let's see... two games a week times 52 weeks = 104 games per year pace. Now he is even busier than Shin Jinseo?

Apparently we now want to say that Go Ratings (actually past go ratings) is the 'truth' and what we actually see happening in the world around us should conform to that or be subject to criticism. However, the Go Ratings algorithm itself rejects this idea since AFAIK it retrospectively adjusts past ratings based on current results. In any case that sort of criticism is supposed to occur here viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13750 anyway. But you already know that, don't you?

Well, first of all, I was referring to the pace of playing a 1- or 2-day title match, then having 2 days off and then playing the next title match which has been pretty much his schedule LATELY. This IS hard and I don't believe you can compare title matches in this sense to just any tournament game (which with the same schedule is already quite tough to handle, too). You forget the protocol and the media. As far as I know, a title game begins (at least) the afternoon before the game already, so in total you have maybe 24 hours to recover and process what happened before you jump in the next title match pre-happenings again: interviews, photo shootings, the banquet, whatever. You never get to really think about anything else for days and days on end without truly relaxing for a bit at some point. And you say that's not hard..? It may not be the only reason for the only recent slump, but I think it is a huge part of it.

And 2nd I thought that this thread was not about ratings... So I won't start on that (also because I honestly don't care about that at all ).

My argumentation may seem 1-sided but what do you expect? I'm a fan and I have been so for >10 years, so.. lol Of course it is. But saying that he's kinda going down the drains (that's what it sounds like here) just because he looses 4/6 title games lately to people who are not in the top 10 in the world is a little.. silly, too, IMHO. But that may only be my point of view as I don't care about world rankings at all and only try to enjoy each match as it comes.