Amazon army

[gazzawhite]

Ueno Asami wins the Senko Cup over Lu Yuhua. Fujisawa Rina finishes 3rd ahead of Xie Yimin.

[Toukopouko]

Some recent changes in female rankings:
- Ueno Asami has gained some ground and moved closer to Fujisawa Rina. However the gap (40 points) is still considerable. Dont expect to see big changes, unless Sumire manages to defeat Fujisawa Rina in their upcoming match.
- Nakamura Sumire has recently moved up from 5th -> 4th -> 3rd in Japanese female rankings (taking over Xie Yimin and Suzuki Ayumi). The ratings are still close though, so anything can happen. Stay tuned.




Previous rankings:
Female rankings on 2022-04-03:

Japanese-only female rankings on 2022-03-18

Please note. The ratings may not appear too important at the moment. However in a few years, if someone wants to travel back in time and know what was going on back then, these may turn out to be more amusing/valuable than we think. We will probably anyway have good written summaries of what was going on, but if you not only want to know what happened, but also "re-live" the moments, you will probably also want to read what people wrote in the comment sections and maybe see some concrete evidence (ie snapshots, photographs, screenshots etc.) of the moments. Anyway. Don't worry. I am not going to post these too often

[bugcat]

How did you get the advanced table on Go Ratings?

Did you have to pay for that?

I only have Rank, Name, Flag and Elo with none of the columns toggleable or reorderable.

[bugcat]

Oh, I just saw your thread (viewtopic.php?f=13&t=18650).

Awesome!

[pajaro]

Results aren't posted to the tournament page yet but that must be the case. I was looking at the two players she might be facing next and I thought I recognized Ryu Shikun. Turns out I've seen his YouTube channel in my suggestions.

Good luck to Fujisawa. If she can win again I wonder if we'd get a "celebrity" YouTube stream. I wonder how the association decides which games are important enough.

Her opponent will be Otake Yu 6-dan. I don't know him, but the fact that he is "only" 6-dan may mean that he's one of those players aiming to the top. Just like Fujisawa.
This game seems like a good candidate for a broadcast in youtube, specially after all the fuss these days. There is no date yet, but it will be after the female Meijin match.

Otake Yu, btw, is 10-2 this year.

Not Amazon related but I'm interested to see if Iyama plays Cho U in the Tengen challenger qualifying.

For this to happen, Cho U has to beat Ida Astushi. Difficult game.

[Elom0]

Okay, the match I've been super excited for, Fujisawa Female Meijin wins game 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt8SJshZdZQ. Unless Sumire gets miraculously stronger by tomorrow it's looking tough for Sumire Sensei (and pretty easy for Fujisawa Sensei)

[John Fairbairn]

Unless Sumire gets miraculously stronger by tomorrow it's looking tough for Sumire Sensei (and pretty easy for Fujisawa Sensei)

Except for one rather odd thing. Sumire had Black. Of the 180 games of hers that I now have, she scored 41 out of 92 (45%) with Black. But with White her score is 55/88 (63%). That's a massive difference, and 180 games seems to be a decent sample size.

And.... In Rina's case, with Black her score is 107/210 (51%) and with White 114/190 (60%).

So the colours may be said to favour Sumire tomorrow. And if they do, colours in in Game 3 will depend on nigiri.

Why such a marked colour discrepancy? It doesn't apply to Ueno Asami, BTW. She is 56% with Black but 46% with White. Even that large gap (in over 200 games) is surely unexpectedly large.

[CDavis7M]

Wow! They played the first 2 moves so much faster than the other Meijin tournament that I have no idea how the reporters kept up. There was a hidden bucket under the table where Sumire kept her signature blanket. But what about her signature mask?

And we got Yamashita Keigo and Seki Kotaro commenting on stream. It's always nice when they have two people. Seki showed his bento lunch -- nothing fancy.

I was interested by the initial fight on the upper side starting with the attachment on top of the pincer. It seemed like a rare play. Yamashita showed some variations on the upper side that looked better for Black. But Fujisawa seemed to take the upper-hand. I'm not sure what to think about that fight -- just that Fujisawa Rina is strong.

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I'm happy most tournaments don't have multiday games. I'm looking forward to the next. Maybe Sumire will be more confident with White.

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I just saw the notification that little Ueno's 1st round Honinbo game is going to be streamed live on the Nihon Kiin's channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjpJYn40UOM

Is she popular? Or just because of her sister? I don't think it's because of her opponent Osuka Seira, also shodan, who I just learned of.

The commentator is listed as Ohashi Hirofum, who I know from his Nihon Kiin Overseas lecture on Dosaku's kake, Shusaku's anto-kake, and Go Seigen's preemptive kake. I was about to say that I remember he was schedule for a previous YouTube commentary but never showed up. Looking through old videos I see it was Judan Game 3 and he did show up -- I was just asleep.

[pajaro]

The female Meijin match ended yesterday.

The result was 2-0 for Fujisawa sensei. This was expected. But how things went... I am not sure if they were expected.

When the challenge was decided, and all the buzz started, I learnt that Rina and Sumire hadn't had an official game yet. Rina doesn't play in most of the female titles, as a title holder, and in the prelims (female and open tournament), she is mostly seeded higher than Sumire. So they still play in different levels. Unless some draw comes, they don't overlap. But this time, the World Senko Cup happened, and the draw paired them. Although it was an on-line game, they were in the same room and could see each other. The result, a 3.5 moku loss for Sumire. Close but not enough. Some people thought that the difference of strength was not so big, and with the right conditions and momentum...

I could see the first game of the match. I though that Sumire was aggressive, and Rina held well. In the end, Rina was ahead before yose, and being strong in yose, it was game over. For the second game, she was more aggressive, too much IMHO. I didn't know that Sumire wins more as white. Maybe she feels comfortable playing like this and komi favours her. Opinions are welcome. My feeling was that Sumire needs to realize when she is overly aggressive. Against players of Rina's level, and above, her shortcomings are more visible. That was a good learning chance for Sumire.

[Elom0]

The female Meijin match ended yesterday.

The result was 2-0 for Fujisawa sensei. This was expected. But how things went... I am not sure if they were expected.

When the challenge was decided, and all the buzz started, I learnt that Rina and Sumire hadn't had an official game yet. Rina doesn't play in most of the female titles, as a title holder, and in the prelims (female and open tournament), she is mostly seeded higher than Sumire. So they still play in different levels. Unless some draw comes, they don't overlap. But this time, the World Senko Cup happened, and the draw paired them. Although it was an on-line game, they were in the same room and could see each other. The result, a 3.5 moku loss for Sumire. Close but not enough. Some people thought that the difference of strength was not so big, and with the right conditions and momentum...

I could see the first game of the match. I though that Sumire was aggressive, and Rina held well. In the end, Rina was ahead before yose, and being strong in yose, it was game over. For the second game, she was more aggressive, too much IMHO. I didn't know that Sumire wins more as white. Maybe she feels comfortable playing like this and komi favours her. Opinions are welcome. My feeling was that Sumire needs to realize when she is overly aggressive. Against players of Rina's level, and above, her shortcomings are more visible. That was a good learning chance for Sumire.

Perhaps playing the Fujisawa Female Meijin in a title match for the first time made her anxious and then revert to her old mistakes, out-Akira Touya-ing Akira Touya, interestingly.

[CDavis7M]

I got a similar feeling watching the game and commentary -- Nakamura Sumire played good moves but Fujisawa Rina is strong and knew how to handle it and get the upper hand.

But look at Ichiriki losing to Iyama time after time and now he's Kisei. I'll be looking forward to Sumire's next few challenges against Rina.

[John Fairbairn]

I gather Sumire missed a chance to win in Game 1 and that was associated with a reference to the pressure she was under. 30 tv and newspaper outlets were present in the media scrum.

[pajaro]

After game 1, Sumire told that she played as usual.

I am not in her head, and I have never been in any situation like that. But I am older than her. Sometimes you are under pressure and don't even realize. You think that your mind is clear, working as it's supposed to do, but it doesn't. Some time later, you say "oh, I remember that time...".

That's called growing.

[Elom0]

After game 1, Sumire told that she played as usual.

I am not in her head, and I have never been in any situation like that. But I am older than her. Sometimes you are under pressure and don't even realize. You think that your mind is clear, working as it's supposed to do, but it doesn't. Some time later, you say "oh, I remember that time...".

That's called growing.

It seems more likely that if the discrepancy you perceive is true, it's just her downplaying it. Although pro opinion might not think that game is over aggressive!

If Cho Chikun is anything to go by you can be emotional and still win titles. Don't be surprised if next year she takes the title 2-0!

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[pajaro]

Different players may have different skills, personalities... and win lots of titles, or never win one.

Next year, Sumire wins 2-0? Yes, why not. Who knows what will happen in the future. But there is something else: today's Sumire would beat the Sumire that started the league. And would lose to the Sumire that will play the first game of next year's league. This, I think is pretty sure.