Following Nakamura Sumire

[Uberdude]

Review of a quick win in internet game of Sumire with some nice tesujis

[John Fairbairn]

Sumire has advanced to the main finals of the 5th Senko Cup. where she has a tough game with Ladies Honinbo Ueno Asami in prospect. She did, however, have the easiest passage through the preliminary, in terms of total dannage in the group. Her final victory was a 0.5 masked win against Deguchi Mariko at the Kansai Ki-in, where, by her own account, she had to come back from a bad start.

But she had a fairly good lockdown, scoring something like 10-14 in the national squad training games, where she had to face several high-dan players. She didn't beat any of them, but players around her rank were gobbled up.

[jlt]

What is the meaning of the word "dannage"? I didn't find it in the dictionary and Google Translate didn't help.

[Bill Spight]

What is the meaning of the word "dannage"? I didn't find it in the dictionary and Google Translate didn't help.

Try "damage".

Actually, my guess is that she had on average weaker opponents in her group, as indicated by their ranks.

Edit: Also see "tonnage".

[Tryss]

The total dannage of a group of go players is the sum of their dan ranks.

But be carefull to not confuse the amadannage and the prodannage

[jlt]

Ah, that makes sense. When I don't understand a word written by John, I keep wondering if it's

• a fancy Engllish word
• Scottish slang
• a neologism
• a pun
• a typo.

[Ferran]

Ah, that makes sense. When I don't understand a word written by John, I keep wondering if it's

• a fancy Engllish word
• Scottish slang
• a neologism
• a pun
• a typo.

F) all of the above

Take care

[Ferran]

BTW, shouldn't she be about to reach 2d? According to John Power she already has 24 wins from 2019, and, so far, at least 10 in 2020. Now, some of those won't be official, I guess, but even so...

Take care.

[jlt]

Do these wins include matches in women-only tournaments which don't count for dan promotion?

[John Fairbairn]

There are three categories of Nihon Ki-in games:

1. Official tournament games that count for promotion, but these vary according tot he type of promotion. Automatic promotions for winning titles are limited to a relatively few events.

2. Official tournament games that do not count for promotion. Those excluded are women's games, some preliminaries of international events. But games against amateurs are generally allowed to count for promotion.

3. Unofficial "free" games, which means stuff like national squad games, exhibition games, and the like.

If you count all three categories, Sumire has played a lot more than just the official games. I have about 80 of her games in the GoGoD database.

It's too much effort to count how many of her games count for promotion, but a very quick eyeball scan leads me to believe she's about two-thirds of the way to 2-dan (she needs 30 wins).

The wins that count for promotion are only those in the following events (not all of which still run, but past wins still count):

Kisei (inc. versus amateurs)
Meijin
Honinbo
Oza
Tengen
Gosei
Judan
Shinjin-O
Ryusei (inc. Tenfu Cupversus amateurs)
Agon-Kiriyama Cup (inc. versus amateurs)
Young Carp
O-Kage
SGW (inc. versus amateurs)
Samsung (main event only)
LG (main event only)
Nongshim
Chunlan
Mlily (main event only)
Globis Cup
Xinao (main event only)
Kuksu Mountains
NK World Ch'p
Tenfu Cup

So, things like the NHK and Okan and team events don't count.

For 6-dan and below, players who fail to meet the criteria under Type 2 can earn promotion by being one of the top two money winners at each rank.

[Ferran]

2. Official tournament games that do not count for promotion. Those excluded are women's games, some preliminaries of international events. But games against amateurs are generally allowed to count for promotion.

Wait, what? A game against an Ama counts but not against women?

The wins that count for promotion are only those in the following events (not all of which still run, but past wins still count):
[...]
Young Carp
[...]
O-Kage
[...]
So, things like the NHK and Okan and team events don't count.
[...]
For 6-dan and below, players who fail to meet the criteria under Type 2 can earn promotion by being one of the top two money winners at each rank.

So... many... questions... I'll limit myself to three... Four. Four it is.

Young carp... Does it have any link with the carp-to-dragon fable?
O-Kage... Shadow? Mirage? Or something else entirely? I'd find that quirky for a tournament name.
And the NHK not counting... too fast or something else entirely? Because I seem to recall that the Ryuusei was about as fast.
How do they check money winners? Same tournaments? Do they count all of them? Exhibition matches? Sometimes I get the feelng it's one of these things were "everybody [ie. Japanese] knows" what they mean, so they don't mean all when they really "mean" "all".

Thanks. Take care.

[John Fairbairn]

Brief and incomplete answers, or tell me where to send the invoice.

1. O-Kage
The title of this tournament means "thank you for your support" and refers to the fact that the Akafuku sweets company owned by the Hamada family at Kotai Jingu shirine in Ise was banned from October 2007 to February 2010 by local trading standards officers for allegedly using expired ingredients and then mislabelling the products. The 300-year-old company made changes to avoid reoccurrence of the problems and was then allowed to resume production, at which point it mounted a major PR drive. This tournament, with a final broadcast on the Nihon Ki-in Yugen no Ma network, was part of the campaign to thank customers for their support. The product is a rice-paste mochi flavoured with red-bean paste, sold mainly in Ise souvenir shops.

2. Young Carp
You might know it as Hiroshima Aluminium Cup, but I avoid that partly because most Americans don't spell aluminium properly, but partly to show it is a young players' event It is restricted to male and female Nihon Ki-in players under 31 and below 6-dan. There is a preliminary leading to a final knockout for 14 player plus the top two from the previous term as seeds (16 players in Term 1), with a single-game final. The young carp (wakagoi) is a symbol used for young boys (though a woman won the first event) but also alludes to the local Hiroshima Carps baseball team.

3.Women's games here means games in women's events.

4. I've never bothered to check out precisely why the NHK is excluded, but the NHK doesn't have preliminaries. Players are seeded in on the basis of money earned in the previous year, with a slight bias to favour younger players. The Ryusei does have preliminaries. The criterion for games for promotion is that the even must be open to all (which the NHK is therefore not), but again with a slight bias for younger players, hence the inclusion of some age-restricted events.

5. I don't know how to count the money. Never had enough to practise. Too busy answering questions. Which is why I don't allow emails from L19.

[Ferran]

Brief and incomplete answers, or tell me where to send the invoice.

Tempting, very tempting. In any case, and in my... best... Adm. Kirk voice... "An incomplete answer? You, John? That's extraordinary." [ST IV]

1. O-Kage
The title of this tournament means "thank you for your support"

Ok, one of those "only in Japan...". Gotcha.

3.Women's games here means games in women's events.

My point is diluted, but it still stands, I believe.

Thank you for your time. I'll leave you with your seminar with uncle $crooge.

Take care. Thanks, really.

[silviu22]

Here's her status as far as I can tell in the Japanese tournaments (Black=still in it, Red=eliminated, Pink=did not participate). June 2020 games are in Green. The dates are for my reference to know when to look again:

Male+Female tournaments:

• Kisei 45 - eliminated in Jan 2020. Kisei 46 should start in Oct 2020.
• Meijin 46 - eliminated Mar 5, 2020. Meijin 47 should start in Dec 2020
• Honimbo 76 - eliminated Nov 2019. Honimbo 77 should start in Oct 2020
• Oza 69 - Won 1st game in Prelim C on 3/12. Won 2nd game vs Sano Takatsugu (8p, #873 2823) on 6/18. Will play Ishida Atsushi 9p next. See frame 1 of Kansai/Chubo from https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/oza/069.html. Oza 70 should start in March 2021
• Tengen 47 - eliminated Apr 2, 2020. Tengen 48 should start in Apr 2021
• Judan 60 - should start in Sept 2020
• Ago/Kiryama 27 - eliminated on Feb 24, 2020 by Sakaguci?. Kiryama 28 - should start in Feb 2021
• Ryusei 30 - Defeated Araki Issei 4P on June 29, 2020 in final of prelim B. Will play Nakano Shoya 1p in Prelim A. She needs two more wins to make it to the block stage. Ryusei 31 should start in April 2021?
• NHK - Has pretty restrictive criteria (no preliminaries). She will probably have to win a women's title to qualify.
• Shinjin (King of New Stars) 45 - eliminated in Dec 2019. New Rookie 46 should start in Nov 2020.
• Hiroshima 14 - eliminated in Sept 2019. New Rookie 47 should start in Sept 2020
• Thanks Cup 11 - eliminated on Apr 6, 2020 by Xie Yimmin. Tanks Cup 12 should start in April 2021
• Okan (Crown) Cup - Not eligible (seems to be for Nagoya branch only).
• SGW Nakajima 2 - did not participate? Nakajima 3 should start in Sept 2020

Women-only tournaments:

• Honimbo 39 - lost in 1st round of prelims (Nov 4, 2019). Honimbo 40 should start Oct 2020.
• Tachiaoi (Aizu Hospital 7) - lost on Jan 23, 2013 after winning first two rounds. Tachiaoi (Aizu Hospital) 8 should start Oct 2020.
• Kisei 24 - Gets to play straight in the final for Prelim B (so needs only one win to make it to the main tournament again). See Kansai/Chubu bracket 3 of https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/fkisei/024.html. Kisei 25 should start July 2021.
• Senko/Saikyo 5th - Lost to Ueno Asami (3p, Female Honimbo, #398 3121) in 1st round of main tournament on July 13, 2020. She won in Dec 2019 and on Feb 13, 2020 (last one vs Ono Ayako, 1p (2682)). Defeated Mariko Deguci 1p on June 25, 2020 in final round of prelims by 0.5 point. Saikyo 6 should start Dec 2020.
• Camachi 1 she lost in 1st round (Jan 13, 2020). Hakata/Camachi 2 should start in Dec 2020.

Her 2020 record is 10-11. Total record (2019-2020): 27-18.

She is 3-1 since the restart:
June 18: defeated Sano Takatsugu 8P in Oza 69 Prelim C.
June 25: defeated Deguchi Mariko 1P in Senko 5 final Prelim.
June 29: defeated Araki Issei 4P in Ryusei 30 Prelim B.
July 13: Lost to Ueno Asami (3p, Female Honimbo, #398 3121) in 1st round of Saikyo 5.

[Ember]

Thank you for summing that up, silviu22! I'm definitely looking forward to her playing Ueno Asami in the Senko/Saikyo, I'm sure it'll be a great game.