Japanese Title and League scene

[jeromie]

Several Japanese players climb. There was a picture of them solving tsumego during a break at the climbing gym.

The nice thing about climbing, like Go, is that females enjoy it too.

That’s really neat to learn. I have enjoyed climbing (though haven’t been in a while), and there is certainly a cerebral aspect that can appeal to go players. Obviously there is a significant physical aspect as well, but a bouldering problem has a lot in common with tsumego. Japan has some of the best sport bouldering climbers in the world, too, so it’s not surprising the sport is popular there.

———-

Congrats to Iyama; he’s been fun to follow over the last decade, and while I’m glad to see younger players do well it’s also fun to see his continued success.

[pajaro]

It was not really surprising that Iyama won the match. But 4-0, is a bit disappointing to Ichiriki's fans. A 4-2 or so would have been better for me

After the game, Cho Chikun said that now that Iyama had the new record, he wanted him to extend it to 20 or so. Makes sense, if you beat me, please do it well I didn't know that Cho Chikun had won the Honinbo twice before his 10 streak. Next year, we have hype again.

All very fun. What about the headlines about a new era after the kisei? Right now, Ichiriki reminds me of Ogata in Hikaru no Go, when he wins titles because the Meijin retires, and he feels that nobody really credits him.

[Ferran]

Cho Chikun's career is impressive. And his character good for YouTube memes, and the odd smile. But what I find most inspiring is his career this century. A few months ago he played (47th Meijin group A) Fukuoka Kotaro, then 2p (now a rank higher), the teen sensation. Even if judging only for the stance, or the way he handles stones, he manages to give a feeling of control the vigor of the teenager can't (yet) match. Cho was winning major titles in his 50s. If we've had Shibano Toramaru as the first teenage Meijin, I think we've certainly had Chikun as the last "Golden Boy" Judan [*]. And I'm not aware of any other older player in the rest of major 7 any more recently. And it looks like he still simply enjoys it.

Take care.

[*] I was trying to remember the name of the recent widow, still playing pro, for a Golden Girl but, for the life of me, I can't remember or find it.

[pajaro]

There is a tesuji that only Cho Chikun can play. Not Iyama, not AlphaGo, not Shin Jiseo. Only Cho Chikun.

if you don't know what I am talking about, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g62mOnoBTZM

As you say, he was Judan quite late in his career (and early too...). In 2007, at age 51.

And Kato Masao won the Honinbo in 2002, he was 55. This is a record quite hard to break.

[Elom0]

Cho Chikun's career is impressive. And his character good for YouTube memes, and the odd smile. But what I find most inspiring is his career this century. A few months ago he played (47th Meijin group A) Fukuoka Kotaro, then 2p (now a rank higher), the teen sensation. Even if judging only for the stance, or the way he handles stones, he manages to give a feeling of control the vigor of the teenager can't (yet) match. Cho was winning major titles in his 50s. If we've had Shibano Toramaru as the first teenage Meijin, I think we've certainly had Chikun as the last "Golden Boy" Judan [*]. And I'm not aware of any other older player in the rest of major 7 any more recently. And it looks like he still simply enjoys it.

Take care.

[*] I was trying to remember the name of the recent widow, still playing pro, for a Golden Girl but, for the life of me, I can't remember or find it.

Suguichi Kazuko Sensei? Although Rui Naiwei was winning women's titles near her 50's.

There is a tesuji that only Cho Chikun can play. Not Iyama, not AlphaGo, not Shin Jiseo. Only Cho Chikun.

if you don't know what I am talking about, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g62mOnoBTZM

As you say, he was Judan quite late in his career (and early too...). In 2007, at age 51.

And Kato Masao won the Honinbo in 2002, he was 55. This is a record quite hard to break.

That sounds like it should be an intro to a Cho Chikun movie: Tenacious: the Tiger of Go. Keeping the trend of intense one word titles for go history books or documentaries. A movie that begins with his tea. When AI can play THAT tesuji, then I'll consider them to have conquered go.

[Ferran]

Suguichi Kazuko Sensei? Although Rui Naiwei was winning women's titles near her 50's.

Suguiuchi sensei, yes. Thank you. And I considered Rui Naiwei, but she didn't have the image I was looking for.

That sounds like it should be an intro to a Cho Chikun movie: Tenacious: the Tiger of Go. Keeping the trend of intense one word titles for go history books or documentaries. A movie that begins with his tea. When AI can play THAT tesuji, then I'll consider them to have conquered go.

We have Invincible, Invisible and Relentless. We could have Tenacious. My French only allows me to wrestle with Motoki Noguchi's book series.

Take care.

[CDavis7M]

I was browsing Twitter and saw the term "Reiwa 3 Crows" (令和三羽烏) which caught my attention because this "3 crow" concept has been used to describe top players in Go history. Maybe the past crows are more famous and so these are the "Reiwa" (May 2019+) 3 Crows. Or are the other crows tied to a particular era as well and I just missed it. The "Tempo 4" are tied to the Tempo era but had 1 too many players to be crows (or the saying came later?).

The tweet (https://twitter.com/KK_joryu/status/1538773422561705984) reported on Sada Atsushi 7d (Kansai Kiin) defeating 2 of the crows, Kyo Kagen and Ichiriki Ryo. So who is the other crow? From looking online I see it's Shibano Toramaru. I guess no surprise there.

Do any of you have thoughts on the "three crows" concept and whether Kyo, Ichiriki, and Shibano should be included? What about Iyama still dominating Reiwa? Or is the concept of "3 crows" meant to suggest that they are rivals? Like how the "Tempo Four" were rivals of Honinbo Shuwa? Does anyone know the backstory of this saying? There seem to be a few Japanese legends (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89 ... D%E7%83%8F) and legends in other countries as well.

Personally, I think it's a bit early to have named Reiwa's 3 crows already. Maybe it's just less fun to name them in hindsight.

Sensei's Library has this list of other crows:

• Hashimoto Utaro, Murashima Yoshinori and Shinohara Masami.
• Fujisawa Kuranosuke, Takagawa Kaku and Tanaka Fujio. (When Tanaka died young, he was replaced by Sakata Eio.)
• Fujisawa Hideyuki, Suzuki Keizo and Yamabe Toshiro. (When Suzuki died young, he was replaced by Kajiwara Takeo.)
• Ishida Yoshio, Kato Masao and Takemiya Masaki. (Three Crows of the Kitani dojo.)

[pajaro]

I guess that those 3 were the new champions that Reiwa brought.

Iyama was winning tournaments way before, but he doesn't belong to any group. He was/is dominating alone.

Before, we had the Heisei 4: Cho U, Yamashita Keigo, Hane Naoki, Takao Shinji, who won everything before the Iyama era.

[CDavis7M]

The Gosei tournament is sponsored by the Newspaper Go Federation (新聞囲碁連盟): 河北新報、新潟日報、信濃毎日新聞、静岡新聞、北國新聞、京都新聞、山陽新聞、中国新聞、四国新聞、高知新聞、熊本日日新聞、南日本新聞、沖縄タイム.

I wasn't able to find a good news site on the Gosei tournament before so I'm looking again. I've seen a Gosei article from the Sankei Shimbun 産経新聞 (Judan sponsor), which is not even a Gosei sponsor https://www.sankei.com/life/igo/. So far I've found SGF commantaries posted on Pandanet https://wwwa.pandanet.co.jp/a/sanyo/ (via Sanyo News 山陽新聞) and the same from Hokkoku news (北國新聞) https://web.hokkoku.co.jp/pandanet/.

Does anyone know of any better news coverage of the Gosei? Maybe too much to ask since it's a group of smaller papers but I'm looking for something that includes background on the match and interviews with the players. Like this article on Game 7 of the Kisei match from Yomiuri describing the player's visit to the temple : https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/igoshougi/kis ... YT8T50063/

I get that Game 1 and 2 of the Gosei don't have interesting locations. But Game 3 will be in a scenic location at a fancy hotel.

Ninnaji Temple.png (428.93 KiB) Viewed 10649 times

[joachim]

There was a stream by the nihonkiin on their YouTube channel on game 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9-JQH1P_k

For game 2 there is also a scheduled stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9-JQH1P_k

[CDavis7M]

There was a stream by the nihonkiin on their YouTube channel on game 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9-JQH1P_k

For game 2 there is also a scheduled stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj9-JQH1P_k

Thanks for the links joachim. I do know of these streams by the Nihon Kiin and they are very well done. And I know that sometimes this channel/stream will show a short video with scenery and interviews during the lunch break. But I am looking for news articles having the interviews, background, and photos for the Gosei tournament. I saw some coverage by the bigger (my assumption) newspapers but I was expecting more. My assumption again, but I would except the sponsors to have exclusive rights to some photos and interviews.


I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I'll copy my other saved notes and websites here:

Tournament: 棋聖 Kisei https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/kisei/archive.html
Sponsor: 読売新聞 Yomiuri Shimbun https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/igoshougi/
Timeline: Jan-Mar
Title Holder: 一力　遼　九段 Ichiriki Ryo 9 dan

十段 Judan https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/jyudan/archive.html
産経 新聞 Sankei Shimbun https://www.sankei.com/life/igo/
Mar-Apr
許　家元　八段 Kyo Kagen 8 dan

本因坊 Honinbo https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/honinbo/archive.html
毎日 新聞 Mainichi Shimbun https://mainichi.jp/honinbo/2022 (NOTE: you can change the date in the URL)
May-July
井山裕太　九段 Iyama Yuta 9 dan

碁聖 Gosei https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/gosei/archive.html
新聞囲碁連盟 Newspaper Go Federation (???)
Jun-Aug
井山裕太　九段 Iyama Yuta 9 dan

名人 Meijin https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/meijin/archive.html
朝日 新聞 Asahi Shimbun https://www.asahi.com/igo/
Aug-Nov
井山裕太　九段 Iyama Yuta 9 dan

王座 Oza https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/oza/archive.html
日本 経済 新聞 Nihon Keizai Shinbun https://r.nikkei.com/culture/go-shogi
Oct-Dec
井山裕太　九段 Iyama Yuta 9 dan

天元 Tengen https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/tengen/archive.html
新聞三社連合 Three Newspaper Company http://tengen.live-go.net/
Oct-Dec
関　航太郎　七段 Seki Koutarou 7 dan

[CDavis7M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4I1c9OcT7M
Wow -- Game 2 of the Gosei title match was pretty wild. Is this 6 title match games in a row that Iyama has won against Ichiriki? It's amazing how well Iyama can play and pull off these wins. Especially against Ichiriki. I really thought Ichiriki was catching up to him.

I picked up his 7 Crown book from MyNavi/"Go People Books" (Igojin? bukksu). I haven't gone through it took much but he does have self-commentary.

By the way, Ida Atsushi gave commentary on this game. He usually dooes well in the tournaments but I haven't seen him on video much. I think one game months ago and then this is the first commentary of his I've seen.

[CDavis7M]

The other day I was looking through the tournament results and saw that Shibano Toramaru was on top of the Meijin finals 6-1 but there was still another round. Well, that round happened yesterday and it's official: Shibano, winner of the 44th Meijin title match, will challenge Iyama Yuta in the 47th match.

The venues are already listed for the match. Many of the venues are the same as last year when Ichiriki Ryo challenged Iyama. However, one hotel is noticeably absent. Perhaps they were only willing to host Ichiriki was the challenger but not Toramaru? I'm talking about hotel "Ichiriki" http://www.ichiriki.com/

[CDavis7M]

The Meijin title match doesn't start until the end of August but there is a preview next week: Iyama Yuta vs Shibano Toramaru in the S-league of the Kisei tournament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdEb-HTmgg

Next tournaments after these are the Oza and Tengen.

Shibano is playing Hane Naoki in Round 2 of the Oza main tournament today. Yo Seki won his 2nd round game in the Oza and will play Anzai Nobuaki. But Yo Seiki is not doing well in the Kisei S-league. The winner between Shibano and Hane will play Seto Taiki, who I'm not familiar with. But he's an Kansai player so it could be exciting for them. Maybe he'll get a live stream.

The Tengen challenger will be Ichiriki Ryo or Ida Atsushi. Ida beat Cho U and Iyama long the way. The game is not scheduled yet. There, Shibano lost to Murakawa Daisuke and Yo Seiki lost to Cho U, both in the first round.

I remember looking at Iyama's progression in the other titles before and thinking that he was not going to be picking up more the next year.

[pajaro]

I'm talking about hotel "Ichiriki" http://www.ichiriki.com/

OMG!

I didn't know that they had played in Hotel Ichiriki!
At least, Ichiriki won that game. What about if he had won the title in that hotel?

About Taiki Seto: I really hope he wins his next game in the Oza, the next, and the title. Why is that? Because I have played him
Let me brag a little... it was ages ago. Seto was 19 and 5 dan, and he was invited to play in the Barcelona tournament. Also, you must know that he is a FC Barcelona fan. Everybody wins. He came to a club. I played him in a 10 people simultaneous game. Most of us, with 9 stones. I still remember how the game went, and the result: B+14.5 I had one picture, of course, but I have lost it at some point. But I don't forget.