Xie Yimin wins Women's Honinbo 5th year straight

[tapir]

She's been averaging 28 wins a year since 2006 (according to Mr. Kin's records), so I definitely wouldn't be surprised to see her eventually become 9 dan by wins alone.

While this is kind of true, average wins do not mean very much. She consistently had a positive record and has to face tougher competition every year, the question is whether she can maintain this positive record against the better competition you see in the final preliminaries and soon main tournaments instead of the early preliminaries.

Has anyone a kifu of the game against Yamada Kimio?

[xed_over]

Has anyone a kifu of the game against Yamada Kimio?

It hasn't yet been published on any of my favorite sites yet, but I transcribed it from the NHK site
http://cgi2.nhk.or.jp/goshogi/gotou/

She clobbered him in only 109 moves
109手　黒番　謝依旻女流本因坊の中押し勝ち

[tapir]

That looks exactly like the kind of game that makes me avoid the mini-chinese. Interestingly this is identical to Ryu Shikun vs. Cho Chikun until move 18 (Meijin tournament 2003). From W24 it goes downhill very rapidly for White. Anyone any ideas or analysis on the game? Was W20 too deep already?

[tapir]

I guess the 6 dan bar is pretty hard:

According to Valerio's update she will be promoted to 6 dan from February 1 for winning most prize money among 5 dans. (I don't find it on the Nihon Ki-in page yet.)

[ez4u]

I guess the 6 dan bar is pretty hard:

According to Valerio's update she will be promoted to 6 dan from February 1 for winning most prize money among 5 dans. (I don't find it on the Nihon Ki-in page yet.)

In this week's Go Weekly (cover date February 6) they have the final top ten money winners for 2011. Xie is number 6 (JPY 20 million), behind Tako Shinji and ahead of Cho Chikun. It is her fourth straight year in the top ten (due to her dominance of the ladies tournament scene the article notes).