Shibano won by half a point and thus takes the Oza title!

The fourth game of the Tengen final between Iyama and Kyo Kagen was played a few days ago. Iyama won rather convincingly, tying up the score to 2-2. The last game will be played in Tokushima on the 18th.

Hurray for the big avalanche! I can't make sense of the move order though.

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If something sank it might be a treasure. And 2kyu advice is not necessarily Dan repertoire..

Yeah, rare to see it these days. Did you mean starting with the q6 pull back? The idea of that over hane is probably because if black pulled back at r4 white would tenuki and treat the stones lightly instead of blocking at r6 (maybe fears a black pincer combining with attack on upper group instead of defending at o3?), so he doesn't play r6 to start. Of course Iyama isn't going to slackly r4 so pushes at r6 and it revents to avalanche. As to why not avalanche initially, I guess he wants to give Iyama the choice to play a bad move. Iyama then played the s4 move that old joseki books say is a mistake but AlphaGo said was best.

Iyama won the 5th game by resign to defend his Tengen title 3-2.

Iyama beat Kono Rin in the first Kisei game by 5.5 points. Bots had him behind for quite a while but Kono seemed to play quite a few slack moves in fights.

Iyama isn't really known for being someone who plays a lot, or especially well, on the internet (his fox account has 54 wins and 89 losses for example). He has however been participating in a pro tournament on fox called 第一期野狐人气争霸赛, where he has been beating up Chinese pros left and right (including people like Xie Ke, Jiang Weijie, and Chen Yaoye, who he beat in the semifinal in a bo3) to reach the final.

The final is against Tong Mengcheng and it's best of 3 as well, with 1h thinking time each and 40secx3 byo yomi. Game 1 of the final was played today and Iyama managed to win with half a point. I'm not sure when the second game will be played as the Fox website doesn't show a date yet. The winner of the tournament will win 500 000 RMB, which is about $72 000 and the runner-up will receive 150 000 RMB or ~$22 000.

Very interesting! I don't play (or even observe on Fox). How many such pro tournaments are run on Fox?

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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

The first final game vs Tong MengCheng, Iyama is Callaway.



Semi-final vs Chen Yaoye:





Quarter-final vs Xie Ke:



vs Jiang Weijie


vs Tang Weixing

Iyama won the 3rd Kisei game against Kono Rin, just 1 more win needed on 14/15 Feb to defend his title.

Iyama managed to lose from a good position after the first day and much of the second. Still he's got several chances to avoid a Kono Comeback.

Shibano Toramaru,Kyo Kagen and Ichiriki Ryo are climbing up in leagues and that might be last chance for Kono to win big title. If he does not win it (and looks that he wont, even if Iyama must be pretty angry for losing from such a good position according to bot he had at some point 90% wr) - i predict he will never win any big title anymore.

Iyama (Callaway) has finally played the second game of the bo3 final in the pro tournament on Fox (called Ren Qi Zheng Ba Sai?) against Tong Mengcheng (TMC/顺利过关). The first game of the final was played all the way back in January, about three months ago. I'm not sure why it has taken so long to get to this second game. The second edition of this tournament has already started, underlining how delayed this game has been. Anyway, Iyama won the first game by half a point, but this time he lost by half a point. It'll be interesting to see how long it'll take for them to schedule the third and final game. Perhaps sometime in July?



Update: The schedule on Fox now says the final game will be played on Tuesday 22/4 at 13:30, Chinese time.

I thought for a moment they intended to play out the final stages over the next tournament like in some of Nihon's titles

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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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UugaLGp6Gdk

General video, with untranslated Japanese, mostly through a conversation with Cho Cikun. And I can't seem to find the auto-translate o youtube any longer, I'm afraid. Still, someone might enjoy this

Take care

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一碁一会

Title matches have resumed in Japan. The first game of the 75th Honinbo thus became, on 2nd and 3rd June, the first such game to be played under anti-Covid conditions.

Both Iyama Yuta and Shibano Toramaru had to play with masks on, like everyone else - scorers, journalists, maids. And all had to g through forehead temperature checks before entry.

But while social distancing was enforced in the press room, the traditional and seating arrangements in the game room flouted the 2-metre social-distancing rule. The board is about 45 cm and players' knees have to be 15 cm from the edge of the board, so that maintaining a 2-yard gap is not at all easy. And as for period of close contact, which in the UK is supposed to be 15 seconds for 2-metres apart, they are allocated 8 hours each, all of which was actually used.

Both they and the scorers are young, of course, but veteran referee Cho Chikun was evidently not being shielded, and he and the scorers sat shoulder to shoulder, though admittedly side by side. Also, the game took place in Yamanashi Prefecture, well away from the main centres of infection, though that may not have been deliberate. The Tokiwa venue is commonly used for title matches, and Game 2 of the 74th Honinbo took place there.

Among the trivial points of interest, Iyama (3 crowns) beat Shibano (2 crowns) despite being forced to sacrifice a large group. Game 2 is on 13/14 June.

If we're talking about this game someone was fast.

Take care.

EDIT: If anyone wants the official, it's here.

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一碁一会

Just noticed that in the go4go DB, Iyama has 10 straight wins against current or former Japanese title-holders (Shibano-3 games, Ichiriki-2, Kyo-1, Kono-1, Cho U-1, Ida-1).

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Occupy Babel!

Iyama won the 5th game of the 75th Honinbo title match vs. Shibano Toramaru by 4.5 points and defends his title.

He has now won the Honinbo title 9 times in a row, which puts him at the same level as Takagawa Kaku (Honinbo 1952-1960) and very close to Cho Chikun who won the title 10 times in row (1989-1998).

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Iyama just won his league game against Cho U and is leading Meijin League by 7-0! But its not all decided (i suppose) - if he lose his last game against Rin Kanketsu, and Ichiriki win his game against Murakawa Daisuke, both will end with 7-1 score. I guess then it will be additional game to decide challenger.