Iyama Yuta - key player in the record industry

[John Fairbairn]

Update: John Power tells me that he has seen somewhere that while Iyama does indeed play go left-handed, he is not left-handed in general. He says, "He plays go left-handed because he got into the habit of making his moves with his left hand when playing go as a computer game."

[imabuddha]

Update: John Power tells me that he has seen somewhere that while Iyama does indeed play go left-handed, he is not left-handed in general. He says, "He plays go left-handed because he got into the habit of making his moves with his left hand when playing go as a computer game."

That makes sense. Many right-handed people only use their left hand to operate the computer…

[LovroKlc]

Update: John Power tells me that he has seen somewhere that while Iyama does indeed play go left-handed, he is not left-handed in general. He says, "He plays go left-handed because he got into the habit of making his moves with his left hand when playing go as a computer game."

It is not important if you are right handed or left handed AFAIK in go. When I was starting, being ambidexterous, I used to play a few moves with my left hand, then with my right hand than left hand again and so on. After some time, I somehow started using my left hand more, and now I can't think about placing stones with my right hand. I suppose, if I forced myself to use right hand now, I wouldn't be able to normally play with left hand after a few months. Probably someone who is totally right handed can force himself to play normally with left hand and after some time play as if he is left handed. Maybe it is because the motion when placing stone isn't very complicated so you can do it with both hands or smthg..

[lovely]

I'm really pulling for Murakawa Daisuke to step up to the plate the way Iyama has. It's high time we had another great Japanese Go rivalry (Chikun - Kobayashi, Sakata - Shukaku).

[hyperpape]

If you can tolerate a little age gap, I think that Cho-Iyama is doing quite well. I think they're 1 and 2 in Japan and the match is very even (17-13 in favor of Cho, 12-12 starting with Iyama's first Meijin challenge).

[EdLee]

Yes, I know, that's why I think it is so exceptional.

Yes, what's impressive is all the good shapes, no bad shapes, no bad habits --
so nice to have pro training from the start.

[niclas]

There is a short video from the posted game available on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwtEhxcLzec

[Ember]

@ niclas:
Cool, thanks for sharing!

So according to Chid0ri's categories, Iyama is a bit of a contortionist, isn't he? *g* Must be quite hard to not to do that in a title match if that's your habit.. But maybe he has grown out of that by now. Anyway, it's really cute! Reminds me of the episode of Go Go Igo, where he appears, wearing braces and all, hehe.

[kitanifan]

According to gobase, Iyama has a birthday today. I hope he'll continue his winning streak against Lee. Happy birtday Iyama.

[John Fairbairn]

I have just seen some comments by Iyama on his Bosai Cup victory. They make intersting reading, especially if you read between the lines.

He said he felt that despite the "limited time" he felt that the depth of his reading had increased. He noticed this most in his game with Yi Se-tol. This seems to imply that he has always been aware of the time constraints, that time has indeed been an important factor (and perhaps likewise for other Japanese players) and that he has concluded that he needed to imporve his tactics rather than his strategy.

In his game with Gu Li, he noticed that the aura he had previosuly noticed around Gu had gone and he was able to play with confidence.

It's my guess, but one supported by both comments, that what this means is that, when reading, he has allowed himself to read more deeply then before with limited time by having confidence in his judgement of individual lines, without doing all the backtracking and doublechecking that the extra time in Japanese tournaments allows.

If this is indeed the trick, it seems easy enpough for other Japanese pros to adopt it, too, so we may see a little surge in their international performance. Interesting times!

[gogameguru]

Very interesting! Thanks John.

This has been discussed before, but the number of mistakes Younggil pointed out in his commentary really shows that these games are too fast now.

If it does have to be that way though, it would make things more exciting to see Japanese players figure out how to become more competitive again under those conditions.

It once again raises the question in my mind about which games are the best for serious study. Maybe that's getting off the topic of this thread though...

[Koosh]

Wow, I had no idea who Iyama Yuta's teacher was.
I've had a conversation with Ishii-sensei before. I wish I had known that at the time. To think that they played 1000 games together is really impressive.

Thanks John. Kansai-kiin all the way

[hyperpape]

Confusingly enough, I think (but am not 100% sure) that both Ishii and Iyama are members of the Nihon Ki-in Kansai branch, but not the Kansai Ki-in.

[oren]

Confusingly enough, I think (but am not 100% sure) that both Ishii and Iyama are members of the Nihon Ki-in Kansai branch, but not the Kansai Ki-in.

That is correct.

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000028.htm
http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000385.htm