Following Iyama Yuta (no world ranking discussions)

[CDavis7M]

My impression is that Iyama is a "known constant" and that people here are over him. Is that true? Would fans like to see other players come up? Or is it something else?

Anyway, Iyama had his 10th Honinbo title win back in June and Go World is just now getting around to celebrating it. At least this delay is consistent with their delay in only now reporting game results from July.

There is an article with a nice collage of photos. 2012 was a long time ago. Even 2020 seems like a long time ago.

Triangles near the game records show Iyama taking black.

The "commuter pamphlet" also features Iyama. Iyama gives his commentary on 2 of his Honinbo title match games. I think both matches were worth highlighting so I'm sharing.

The first is Game 7 of his first Honinbo title match [

][/url], the 67th, against "Honinbo Dowa" (Yamashita Keigo). Side note, I just realized that these game records have a built in "guess the next move" feature. Yamashita didn't hold on to the title long enough to keep his Honinbo name. Iyama got to be named Honinbo Monyu. Apparently a priest of the temple picked out the first character (Mon) and the second is from Yuta's own name. Searching the internet it seems that the temple was associated with the Honinbos. Honinbo Sansa was a priest before he was Honinbo. I could be getting bits of this wrong but I think tradition is interesting. Iyama has held it long enough (5 titles I believe) so that he can keep his Honinbo name. Luckily the other titles don't also give names (or do they?) or that might be even worse than the constant renaming in the Edo-period.

The second game in the commuter pamphlet is game 1 of the 75th Honinbo title match against Shibano Toramaru in 2020. Apparently Go World decided to copy-paste the QR code from the first game (vs Yamashita) and so I cannot provide the game record. I tried to reverse engineer it but no luck. I'm trying to look for the game recording on YouTube but I have to sift through dozens of Iyama videos including a picture of his curry lunch that he's eating right now... Ah, here is the video.

I'm still looking at that curry (3H 48M into the stream). I actually picked up some Golden Curry yesterday and so now I know what's for dinner tomorrow.

[kvasir]

My impression is that Iyama is a "known constant" and that people here are over him. Is that true? Would fans like to see other players come up? Or is it something else?

I think the title of this topic gives much of it away. Sorry for this topic violation

Another factor may be that nowadays when super strong players are so many, we just don´t have time to follow everyone. Considering the lingering enthusiasm around older players, say Cho Chikun and Cho Hun-hyun, nostalgia may play a bigger role in who is the most favorite than anything else.

I´ll add a third factor to be on topic, Iyama didn´t have to overcome an undisputed champion of the Japanese Go world so his achievements may gather less fame than those of his rivals who will eventually overcome him. Likely there will be renewed interests in Iyama when this happens. He surely is facing his strongest opposition in the latest round of title matches and is still likely keep must of his titles so he is not really out yet and may well be the favorite of fans for years to come.

[John Fairbairn]

There may be something in the argument that Iyama's rivals were not of the stature of, say, Kobayashi Koichi, Cho Chikun, Fujisawa Hideyuki, Sakata, Takemiya etc, though the likes of his rivals Takao and Yamashita did clock up over 20 titles (just like Takemiya, in fact ). But it's a bit hard to argue with 75 titles and counting. Iyama has thus surpassed, say, Kobayashi (63) by a long way.

Yet, evidently like many others, I find him, and other current top players, boring. I haven't met him, but I've met Yi Ch'ang-ho, Yi Se-tol and Ke Jie, and what's struck me is that they have no obvious personality. I don't mean they have no personality (I know they can each sparkle in private), but it seems suppressed. My first thought is that this is the fault of social media and the need to be cautious. Also, the older players met proper journalists who wrote about then in print. Nowadays too many so-called journalists work from a desk in front of a computer, recycling whatever they find on the internet.

But just because we may find him boring here, that doesn't mean the Japanese find him boring. I haven't been able to get to Japan for the past two years, but, before that, just about the only go book you'd find in Japanese airport stalls was about Iyama. Even today, a book of commentaries on his early games is 32nd in Amazon's ranking of Japanese go books. That's very high. If you strip out the dross, such as "Hikaru's introduction to go," which is No. 1, and various tsumego books, he would be in the top ten. Of some 30 books by (or "by") him or about him, I think all score 4 stars or higher. So he is obviously popular there.

I suppose the elephant in the room is his performance on the international stage. It's not a total write-off, but I think people who want to be his fans would hope for more. (He did win his last international outing, against Ding Hao in the China Weiqi league a bit over a week ago.) The usual explanation put forward is that Japanese titles are more lucrative than most international ones, and as a Kansai lad Iyama knows which side his bread is buttered on. But I think that argument makes more sense if you are actually a Japanese fan of his.

[kvasir]

I suppose the elephant in the room is his performance on the international stage. It's not a total write-off, but I think people who want to be his fans would hope for more. (He did win his last international outing, against Ding Hao in the China Weiqi league a bit over a week ago.) The usual explanation put forward is that Japanese titles are more lucrative than most international ones, and as a Kansai lad Iyama knows which side his bread is buttered on. But I think that argument makes more sense if you are actually a Japanese fan of his.

It is hard to say much about individual players. Iyama is sometimes in the contention for the world cups, making the semi-finals in the Ing cup this years is an example, but often he is not even in the field. If this is because he doesn't play in the preliminaries, has schedule conflicts or for some other reason I just don't know.

For Japan in general it used to be that the top players showed up and then were just knocked out early, but this has changed because these days you don't see that many Japanese players in the preliminaries at all. In the end it is a game of numbers: not going to the preliminaries, the preliminaries sometimes awarding less seats for Japan, and the fact that Japan doesn't produce top players at the same rate as China and Korea. Obviously, the first step to winning world cups is to participate. The same applies here as with Iyama because I have no idea why so few Japanese players join the preliminaries for some tournaments when there are hundreds of players joining these preliminaries from say China.

[CDavis7M]

Poor Iyama. Guess he'll just stay a small town hero.

[John Fairbairn]

Just for the record, Iyama has reached the top of the international mountain once (winning the TV Asia Championship) and he has reached finals (e.g. LG Cup).

And as for actually taking part in international events, it's not just a question (even for junior players) of earning more money at home than abroad, but - related to that - it is a matter of giving priority to Japanese sponsors. Very long term sponsorship by a single sponsor is a major characteristic of Japanese go. The Honinbo is now in term 76 and several other big events are well beyond 50 terms. Korea and China come nowhere near matching that - even longish-running events there may have already had several different sponsors, with prize funds going up and down.

Iyama has said several times he'd like to test himself more abroad, "but...". Clearly something is restraining him. As a title holder and thus automatically having a place in the following year's title match, he knows at least a year in advance where he has to be on a certain date for a sponsor who makes block bookings years ahead for title games. In that respect Iyama is more like an opera singer than a games player.

That said, a possible handicap to his success in international events when he does take part may be his style of play. He relies on shinogi, which appears to work well against weaker domestic players, but is problematical against tactical players from Korea and China. That in turn may be influenced by the fact that in Japanese title games he can spend up to 8 hours dancing the shinogi strathspey, but in international games he has a maximum of 3 hours, and often less, and so has to dance jigs and reels all the time.

[kvasir]

I realize now it was Ichiriki Ryo that had good results in the Ing cup this year not Iyama, my bad. Iyama record in international competition is not bad at all, I am pretty sure if had spent the last 10 years playing every international tournament instead of the Japanese tournament scene he would have had a number of world cups, it is just how it is that he did not. There would probably be a lot larger international fan base if he had, but he is no bad "small town hero".

Maybe it could be said that Cho U (or Zhang Xu as Pandanet is now styling his name) should be considered the champion in Japan before Iyama and he sure did take 4 titles from him, so maybe it was mistaken to say Iyama didn't have to overcome a champion.

Iyama sure was impressive in the Asian TV cup...back in 2013...but this is a 10s competition between the winners and runner ups of 10s TV cups (recently it is NHK, CCTV and KBS). Wouldn't really view it the same as the other world cups, though it is one of few that has a long history.

The numbers game is extrema in some cases. In the 3rd Mlily cup there were 8 Japanese players in the preliminary and 275 Chinese. That said I have no idea about the rules and conditions of the preliminary, every tournament is different in that regard. Somehow the recent "world" championships often have the characteristics that most of the players are from the country of the host organization.

[pajaro]

The #46 Meijin is being played now. More specific, the 6th game will resume in a few hours.

Iyama is playing Ichiriki (again... what is new?). Ichiriki is up 3-2, with a game, the second one, that although was won by Ichiriki (B+0.5) could have gone either way. None of the players was satisfied with it. So the match could be 2-3 now. Quite even.

But in this game, after the first day, Iyama has 97% chances of winning, according to IA. I can't tell if it's too high, but it certainly feels that Iyama has a better position, with Ichiriki having started a fight very early. An unreasonable one.

This reminds me of the Honinbo. Iyama, 1-3 down, was facing kadoban for the first time in a long time, and in his 10th Honinbo. But not only he kept the title, it looked like his opponent was the scared one. Now he is facing kadoban again, and seems to already be crushing Ichiriki.

I am not saying that Iyama will keep the title. I don't know. Even if he wins the 6th game, the last game is a fresh start for both. Iyama may be a constant, or dull, or other things. But I am interested in the psychological side of the game. So I like to see him struggling like this.

[CDavis7M]

The #46 Meijin is being played now. More specific, the 6th game will resume in a few hours. Iyama is playing Ichiriki (again... what is new?). Ichiriki is up 3-2, with a game, the second one, that although was won by Ichiriki (B+0.5) could have gone either way. ... Now he is facing kadoban again, and seems to already be crushing Ichiriki...

Thanks for the reminder. I watched maybe 20 moves last night (for me). I just let the stream run in the background. I do think Japanese Go would be more interesting with more players successfully vying for the titles.

I have to admit that I found Iyama a bit dull before. But since I last posted, I went to Go4Go and skimmed through dozens of his matches from 2020 and 2021 and I ended up liking his Go more than I thought I did.

Although, I like Ichiriki's lunch more. He got curry again (yum) while Iyama had soba noodles and tempura (meh).

Even more off-topic, the Japanese Go photographers should switch to mirrorless cameras. You have your volume up to hear the stones and then get blasted by machine gun fire in 2 focal lengths when the sealed move is handed over.

[CDavis7M]

Iyama just won the 7th game of the Meijin vs Ichiriki. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrnN-MzvVSg. The commentary was given by Suzuki Shinji, whose commentary style we discussed recently. When he won someone decided to pay $500 to post a message in the chat congratulating Iyama -- 30% goes to YouTube. That person must already have a diploma.

Meanwhile, the US Go "Power Report" just came in stating that Iyama won his game in the A division of the Chinese team tournament back in September. I had not been following those games. The records are on Go4Go but I'm not sure where else these games are covered.

So yeah, congratulations to Iyama. By the way, he didn't have soba for lunch today in case anyone else was tracking.

[Ember]

Damn, I totally forgot about game 7. Could've watched it since I got a few days off.... Well... But I'm really happy he defended the title yet again. It was a great match and I really like Ichiriki, too. His time will come one day. Until then I hope Iyama will win a lot more titles.

[pajaro]

When he won someone decided to pay $500 to post a message in the chat congratulating Iyama -- 30% goes to YouTube. That person must already have a diploma.

I think you mean 500 HKD (Hong Kong Dollar) = 64 USD (more or less). Not bad, but not 500...

To the point: Iyama made it again, recovering after a bad start of the match. It's not that I don't want him to win, but I feel bad for Ichiriki. He just lost the Gosei, and they are going to fight again in the Kisei.

I watched this last game, both days. Ichiriki (white) started a fight quite early, and had a group running. I don't think Iyama had any serious trouble. The last game of the Honinbo was the same, when Shibano tried too hard too early. At least, that was my feeling.

A few days ago, there was an opening ceremony of the Gosei. I don't know if there is one for every big title. The thing is that Iyama said something like he had to try harder in one day games, it was something to work on... clearly, he feels very comfortable with 2 day games.

[CDavis7M]

This Pro vs Ama Honinbo match started off pretty wild. 5-5, then 2 space high kakari, and then 6-4. I haven't heard anything about the amateur Honinbo but this seems like a fun event. It's live now. Short time allowances but I'll probably still miss the end.

https://youtu.be/o4aSp4EbLDI

[kvasir]

There is an amateur Honinbo championship and the winners of the ama and pro Honinbo play a game with handicap that is changed every year depending on who won. I think John Fairbairn posted more details in this forum before.

According to sensei's and wikipedia the handicap was 2 stones with -3 komi in 2018 and it is not clear to me if the 2019 match took place but the 2020 amateur Honinbo was cancelled. The amateur is Hiraoka Satoshi. It seems he is titled as a replacement for the 2021 match because the ama-Honinbo seat was vacant but then also titled as the current Honinbo, maybe there were two matches this year. He has won the pro-ama match at least twice and this would be the third or fourth showing. Judging from SL he has won with 2 stones and -6 komi and with 2 stones but lost with -3 komi.

I am not sure what the komi is in today's game. Sometimes these matches are relayed on Pandanet but not today so there is not really any one to ask except if someone here knows (but I guess the game will be over in just over an hour from now).

[John Fairbairn]

The 2020 Pro-Am Honinbos [note the plural] match, Term 57, was played. Ozeki Minoru beat Iyama with 2 stones, 0 komi.