Yes I hope he starts winning titles at some point and manages to avoid a situation à la Yoda Norimoto who spent most of his best years when both Cho & Kobayashi were reigning supreme.

Even though the gap differences between the reigner and the challenger are different, I think Ichiriki Ryo and Shin Jinseo are following the same fate.

We don't know ahead of time when each player will reach his peak. Iyama has arguably been at his all time peak in his mid-late twenties, while Ichiriki is only 20. At 20, Iyama was just starting to take titles from Cho U (who was himself very good, but not as dominant as Iyama, and perhaps beginning his own fall from the very top).

I'm not sure when you'd say Park was at his peak, but Shin is only 17, which is still quite young. Too young to prejudge matters.

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Occupy Babel!

Yes, too young but Shin Jinseo has to compete with time too. The moment he has to military conscription his reigning chance is over.

Hello, today is the 4th game of the oza. Where can I see a live video?

4th or 3rd game?

Oh sorry , the 3rd game.

Iyama Yuta won by resignation, thus successfully defend Oza crown. Next match against Ichiriki Ryo is November 24, the third out of five games of Tengen crown. (Iyama already has two won games)

I'm wondering if Oza has lunch break or not...

This atari from Ichiriki did surprise me: seeing as Iyama tenukid it and then managed to kill the entire white centre group it seemed like a mistake (though the aji from it did makes the centre harder to kill, but not impossible). Someone on facebook reports commentators said Ichiriki was in byo yomi so probably a failed timesuji. If that atari was a good exchange then before living at the marked point many moves ago would have been a better timing. A shame to spoil a title match like that.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Ichiriki (white) vs Iyama
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O . O . . O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O . . . O . O . . |
$$ | . . . O O O . . . X X O . . . O O O X |
$$ | . . O , X . O . . , O O O O O X O X . |
$$ | . . O X . O X O . . . O . O X X X . X |
$$ | . . X X . . . . X . . X O X . . . X . |
$$ | . . . . X . O X . . . X O . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O X O O X . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X O . O X O O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , O . X O X , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . 2 O . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . X X . . . . . . . . . . X . O . |
$$ | . . . O . 1 X . . . . . . . X . X O . |
$$ | . . X O X X O X . X X . . . X X O O . |
$$ | . . X X O X O . X O . . O . X O . . O |
$$ | . . X O O O O O X O X X . X O O O . O |
$$ | X X O . W O X O X O . . . . X . X O . |
$$ | . O . O . O X X X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

And the drought continues. Ichiriki is now 0-8 in the last 8 games against Iyama.

Iyama Yuta is in good form right now, with a 9 game winning streak including, of course, his wins against Ke Jie and Yang Dingxin(ranked 24 on goratings).

Is it me or are Iyama's games keep getting more and more complicating/fighting? His last 5 games or so were ridiculously complex.

I think Iyama's always been a fighty player, and doesn't back down from a fight against his Japanese peers because he usually out-reads them. Ichiriki is also fighty, in fact I thought his recent games rather lacked the intricate small-scale fighting and tesujis I liked when I first started following his games a couple of years ago.

To me Iyama's games were more "free-flow" and less fighty when he was younger (like 5-7 years ago), but in the last few years it seems that he never backed downed against anyone, even sometimes being outread by stronger opponents in international encounters.

Iyama around the same age had the same issue with Cho U. He had to figure out how to overcome a player who had won five titles and good international performances.

Live kifu link
https://t.co/5SYBzDbZhq

Thank you, is there any live stream?

Iyama Yuta won by resignation, thus successfully defend Tengen crown. Next match against Ichiriki Ryo is January 18-19, the first game out of seven games of Kisei crown. This will be the first time Ichiriki Ryo compete in a two days match as Kisei title match has 7 hours 50 minutes main time per side and 10 periods of 1 minute byoyomi.

Iyama's play suggests to me move 82 (e2) was a crucial mistake. It's locally sente to kill the group but before living Iyama cut and start fighting on the outside and didn't come back to live until move 119. Was it better for Ichiriki to spend a move on the outside (simplest would be m6 connection, is it too slow, try something else like o6 or m10?) because I doubt Iyama would then play a reverse sente move in the e2 area giving Ichiriki another move on the outside (plenty to choose from: right side, top left, centre etc) so then Ichiriki could get his sente there anyway later without all that cut mess on the outside. (and in fact e2 sente was not even a good idea in the game with the change in eyespace of the white bottom left group after the top left fighting!).

The latest Go World has some interesting stats in celebration of Iyama's second heptadiadem - such as having a much stronger likelihood of winning the early games in title match series (overall he scores 70% but in Games 1 and 2 he scores 77%, and in 5-game matches he scores 88% in Game 1. But in Game 4 overall (which by conventional wisdom among pros is the important game in a 7-game title match, he scores just 60%.

But the most important stat, I think, which has been surprisingly overlooked, is that Iyama is well set to break Cho's record of total titles (74). Iyama is on 46 with age on his side (he's 28). He's in 6th place overall but with two more wins he'll move up to 4th, and there's no-one else in the field likely to catch him. He's automatically in the next title match for each of the major events, of course.

More immediate is that if Iyama wins this current Tengen then he breaks Rin Kaiho's 1993 record of 5 wins. That'll be his first "most wins in X big title" record.