Considering that many of Iyama's games are played to defend his titles, fatigue might be a factor, not unlike what Ke Jie has experienced recently. But you are right, Iyama's form is not good lately.


I think we all deserve a bit more civility than this.

Iyama is currently playing Kono in game 5 of the Kisei title match, and is attempting a very exciting big kill of 'take the eyes and let it run through your moyo' style after he died and didn't get much in return in the opening (though Kono could have just lived but tried to get a sente push to create weaknesses first and Iyama resisted).

Edit: and he succeeded! Very sneaky that wide top side extension if it really did mean white couldn't push without dying (like something out of Ma Xiaochun's 36 Stratagems). Shouldn't Kono have read more carefully before pushing though? It's an easy mistake to make, assuming the push is sente (I made almost the same mistake in the British title match game 1, and ended up dying too after a ko), but for a 9 dan in a slow title match... Maybe he was in byo-yomi by then.

You mean Sun Tzu's?

For the pushing exchange, I believe Kono already thought about B's resistance, but maybe he believe that he could connect with his stones outside, but then realized that the aji in the center could turn really bad.

By the way, this game is typically Iyama's! Having rather a bad fuseki, and turn it around by outplaying his opponent. But I believe it would be hard if he plays international tournaments this way! In the exhibition game he lost to Lee Sedol before, his fuseki seems really bad, and his invasion/tenuki was really hard to understand. Thought he was able to create some complications later, he couldn't catch up against Lee.

No, a more recent Chinese military text which was the basis for a rather interesting book by Ma: http://senseis.xmp.net/?36StratagemsAppliedToGo.

Today Iyama beat Yo Seiki in the first game of the Judan title match. There was some interesting large scale fighting in which a group of Iyama's locally died but there was just enough aji in Yo's surrounding group (so Iyama's tenuki of an earlier ko threat on the group wasn't actually such a tenuki) that Iyama cut and killed that instead.

Today and tomorrow it's the 6th Kisei game against Kono Rin. Iyama leads 3-2 so if he wins defends his title.

Update: Iyama won and thus wins the Kisei title for the fifth year in a row, so gets to call himself Honorary Kisei.

So he is now the honorary Kisei and Honinbo. Actually the first big-3 title he had won was the Meijin, but he lost it from times to times, so can't yet be called "honorary meijin".

I thought the honorary titles apply when the player retires. However I see Cho Chikun referred to as 25th Honinbo though he has not retired.

Strictly the Honinbo is different because it is not an "honorary" title but a "lifetime" one, but I think the retirement aspect is to do with that being when they start paying his extra pension.

Ten straight and you get it immediately. Five straight and you get it when you turn 65 I think. I'm not sure why those chose that.

and Gosei, right?

Yes. He'll at the very least have those three and likely more.

Iyama has defeated Ichiriki Ryo to win the 64th NHK Cup.

Game video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDUgR2Q_gG0&t=25s

Iyama has lost to both Park and Mi in the World Go Championship... Nothing surprising. I now kind of expect Iyama to lose to deep zen.

Iyama is making a rare but welcome trip abroad to play in the LG cup. He is through to the last 8 with decent wins over Lee Youngku 9p (goratings.org #33) and Zhou Ruiyang 9p (#10). Next up is rising young Chinese Yang Dingxin 5p (#20).

I don't get it why Motoki keeps resigning so early...

Iyama beat Motoki Katsuya in the 3rd Honinbo title match game by resign, so just 1 more win to hold the Honinbo.


Well, that double peep of Iyama is devastating (though pretty obvious, so I don't understand why he didn't push instead of knight's move), he can't keep all his bits connected. But also being the much weaker player in your first big final is tough on the nerves, and would require a great deal of fortitude to keep on fighting in a bad position. Plus there is some bad aji in white's top left corner.

72nd Japanese Honinbo, title match #3 Iyama Yuta 9p (Black) vs. Motoki Katsuya 8p (White) B+R

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O X X . . X . . . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . . X O O . . O X X O O . |
$$ | . . . O . X X X O O . O O O O O X O . |
$$ | . . . . . X O O X X O X O X X X . X . |
$$ | . . . O O X O O O X X X X O . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . O O X O . . . . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . O X . . X X O O . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O X O O X . X . O . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . O O X O . X . . , 1 . . . . , . . . |
$$ | X O O X O . X O . O . . O . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O X . O X X . . O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . X X O . X O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O X . O . . . O X . . . . X . . |
$$ | . O O . O X O X . . O X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O O O O X . . , O . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . X X X . X X . . . . . X . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Iyama Yuta successfully defends Honinbo title. I think he's doing very good after disappointing result from world go championship. His rating also reaches a new high.

Iyama did well to get 2 wins in the LG cup, but Motoki was hardly stiff opposition for the Honinbo so I wouldn't say beating him was "very good" but expected, dropping more than 1 game would be a disappointment, and losing the title a huge upset. goratings puts him at #115 with 3292 (maybe he's on good form though as he won Honingo league) so Iyama's win rate per game at 80% or 42% for 4-0. Personally I think that 80% could be too low given the psychological pressure of playing the top dog in your first 2-day-game title match.

Don't get me wrong, i really the guy, from the way he places the stones to his games, with the fighting and whatnot...if only he would play more in the international scene...