Iyama and Ichiriki will finish up game 3 of the Kisei title challenge today.

In case anyone else was wondering what watch Iyama wears, I'm pretty sure it's an Aquaracer.

I don't wonder about his watch.

What I wonder about, is what he was thinking.
I can't find the game record yet, but the broadcasts are here:

Day 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPRTYqNMvnY

Day 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTZ-xRk_HQA

Iyama was dominanting from the beggining. By the end of day 1 (SPOILER ALERT!) he was way ahead, according to IA evaluation. Also according to my limited human opinion.

But in the middle of day 2, in a ko fight, he ignored a threat and all of Ichiriki's problems were gone.

REAL SPOILER ALERT!


Iyama is still Iyama and blah, blah, blah. But I think Ichiriki might win the match.

Dang, just jinxed Yang Dingxin.

Or maybe he saw your post and went "hold my beer".

I'm talking of LG Cup's final game #1 from yesterday of course. Haven't checked with an AI yet, but I'd be surprised if that "record" wasn't pulverized.

Large percentage swings from a single move (aka blunders) aren't all that rare in pro games, even among top players. Just yesterday, Seo Bongsoo made an inaccurate move in yose that cost him a point. However since it was the very end of the game (which he lost by 0.5 points), that single move dropped his winning chances from 95% to 5%. Or for an example from a longer time format, this game from the 46th Meijin League involved both players making several moves that had 80%+ swings.

Yes, in really close games, in yose, it's not uncommon to see these big swings.

Fujisawa Shuko was famous for his blunders. You can see a famouse one here:

https://senseis.xmp.net/?Poka

You lose about 2 points and go to the history books...

I was thinking that perhaps we could merge this with the original Iyama thread since Iyama Rating Skeptiscm has largely declined into nothingness given his recent good performances internationally . . .

edit: I realize this is the original thread after all (with rating worship posts moved), my bad!

In a really close game (1/2 point), Iyama lost the 4th game of the Kisei to Ichiriki.

It's now 1-3. Iyama recovered from this in the Honinbo against Shibano, can he do it again?

Nongshim Cup

Lost to Mi Yuting. Winning streaks ended.

Already ensure 2nd place at least for Japan Team this year.

I feel like Iyama already did his part and if anything I'm looking forward to seeing other players play.

As for his domestic title performance, as much fun as it is to see pictures of Iyama counting his fingers, I would be very happy for Ichiriki to hold a title again. He's good enough that it will happen. So why not the Kisei?

Looks like Ichiriki will have to wait a bit more.

Today Iyama won the first kadoban game, and now the match is 2-3. The players will meet again in a week, also in Hakone.

I saw the end of that game this morning. I do look forward to Ichiriki holding a title again but I am also glad to see Iyama fighting back and extending the match.

I like day 2 of the games because it's fun when the players reset the board. I was reminded of Castle game shitauchi and that practice would not be so bad for spectators but it does lose the drama if you know it's redecided. Three or four hours is fine to watch a game, but 16+ gets to be too much.

6th game of the Kisei. Iyama won and now it's 3-3.

As usual lately, Iyama started better than Ichiriki. But he fought back and tried to kill a very large group. The thing became a ko (2-step ko, I think). Ichiriki had a chance to pull an upset but in the end, Iyama won. I wonder if all of his games are so close that he needs to fight for his life like this. What about a safe move from time to time?

The deciding game in a week (days 17 th and 18th) in Kyoto.

I forced myself to not watch the first day and I'm happy I did. I watched a bit of the game last night and caught the result this morning. I saw a bit of commentary from Tsuruyama and Kono Rin I'll have to go back and watch it more.

What an exciting Kisei tournament!

When did Ichiriki have a chance? It appeared that Iyama played quite accurately. I recall towards the end the AI on the Nihon Kiin stream went a little haywire but I think that White was always winning that ko.

When white was setting up that ko, his chances were around 50-50. And before even started, when white was preparing, it was 75-25 for black.

All according to NK's AI. But black's chances were very brief. Like if both players are missing something.

If someone is interested, see here:

https://youtu.be/JAv18b90xgw?t=33364

I also saw that on the live stream. But on other sites (such as this one), the fluctuation was not nearly as severe. I'm curious to know if the commentators provided a sequence which demonstrated how Black could win, because I'm wondering if the Nihon Kiin AI maybe just isn't that strong (the Katago that I run on my personal computer also gave advantage to Black at some points, but when I went through the suggested lines that advantage eventually swung back to White).

All I am saying is that black had its chances.

An AI evaluation implies that, at a certain position, a player plays against the same player, and some things might happen or not. This player is the AI, and it doesn't take into account the human players. Perhaps Iyama is better than Ichiriki at fighting ko, and he knows this. Or perhaps both humans evaluate the value of a move with the idea in their heads, and the AI evaluation doesn't reflect it. Later, at home, both might say "Ahhh... I see...". One player might regret a lost chance, the other might feel he was lucky. But from time to time, when a player is leading and makes a small mistake, the other seizes the opportunity and the game changes.

In this case, black's window was narrow. But it existed.

The Honinbo match has started. Right now, Ichiriki and Iyama are playing the second game, after Iyama took the first one.



I have seen something that I did not expect.

In the events previous this this kind of games, Iyama wrote something in the back of the board, and then both players signed. Iyama used his right hand. When he plays, he uses his left hand. But this is the first time I have seen him writing. Probably, he learnt calligraphy with his right hand because it's easier, it is the hand you "are supposed" to use, etc. Is he really left-handed?

This reminded me of Rafa Nadal. He is right-handed, but plays as a left-handed.

He is right-handed. The use of his left hand derives from his grandfather, who taught him go, and also encouraged him in the now ingrained habit of playing stones with his left hand. The idea was to stimulate the right side of his brain. Around that time there was a major obsession with the right brain in Japan, and countless books designed to teach to play golf with the right brain or cook with the right brain etc etc appeared.

As to whether it worked, I'm not even sure that experts can tell, especially given the way so-called expert psychologists are flatly contradicting each other in the Depp-Heard case.

But grandad's tuition can certainly be said to have paid off, and is reflected in the fact that Iyama's Honinbo style, chosen only in 2016, is Mon'yu 文裕. He chose it in honour of his grandfather 鐵文. I have not seen a confirmed reading for that. Tetsubun has been quoted but that may just be the usual polite sinified reading used when the writer does not know the more normal Japanese reading, for which the two main candidates are Kanefumi and Tetsufumi.

I remember reading about his grandfather before, must have been last year's Honinbo, and they were discussing Iyama's choice of 文 in Monyu being significant because of his grandfather and other reasons. My first expectation was that he wanted the same reading but the article specifically mentioned he just took the character, not the reading. I have no clue about Japanese name readings though. Doing a search, a 2020 article on Mainichi gives てつふみ tetsufumi as the reading for his grandfather's name 鐵文. This is not the same article I read before. Whether Mainichi got it right...


By the way, Happy Birthday to Iyama yesterday on Day 1 of Game 2.


More news for anyone interested: https://mainichi.jp/honinbo/2022