Life In 19x19

I just got the latest issue of the Nihon Ki-in's monthly Go World magazine (月刊碁ワールド）and I was surprised to see a history lesson. In 2024 it will be 100 years since the Kiin was established back in July 1924. I hope this means they publish 24 articles because this one is fun.

The story starts with a bit of the background on the various players and factions, the Great Kanto earthquake, then goes on for a few pages. You get tidbits like how the post-War Oteai was held in restaurants. I've read about some of this in Fairbairn's articles on GoGoD and in Meijin of Meijins, so that's helping me follow this article.

Anyway, here is a picture of Karigane Junichi (left) playing Honinbo Shusai Meijin (right) in their famous match 院社対抗戦, which I think is "In-Sha competition match/tournament" or "In vs Sha tournament" -- a battle between the Nihon Kiin 棋院 and Karigane's opposing school called the Kiseisha 棋正社. GoGoD has the game as 1926-09-27a labeled as "Nihon Ki-in v. Kiseisha Win & Continue Match."



It could be the lighting/shadows but those stones look huge. And look at that record book. I wonder if they still have it? From the photo it looks like Karigane just played B25. I transposed the diagram here to match the picture. On Sensei's Library this is called the "Famous Killing Game." https://senseis.xmp.net/?FamousKillingGameOf1926 I wish this game was the game review in Go World.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . O , O . . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 1 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . . |
$$ | . . X , X . . . . , . . . . O , O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . X . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This issue also covers Game 6 of the Kamakura jubango between Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru with a full game review - "Speed vs　Deliberation."



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I did a quick look at the GoGoD Encyclopedia to see what I might have read before and I found an article on this very competition (having the same picture!), along with other articles on this era of Japanese Go:
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/History/Newspapers.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Tourneys/Promotion/EarlyOteai.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/History/TimeLines/TL1868-1925.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/History/TimeLines/TL1926-88.htm
* GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Tourneys/Insha/Insha.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/NewInGo/Karigane.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Players/GSG_Mioch.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Players/KitaniCallup.htm
GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Players/HoninboShusai.htm

The first picture surprised me. For 2 reasons:
- First, the 3 gentlemen in the back seem to be watching. Nowadays, the referee, announcer... leave after the first few moves. But here, it looks like they are going to watch the whole game. Not only that, the way they sit remind me of some old movies about billiards (have you seen "The hustler"?).
- Second, again the 3 gentlement. That was in the 1920's and they were dressing in western clothes. I thought it was common after the WWII, but not so much before. But it's 3 out of 3.

pajaro wrote:The first picture surprised me. For 2 reasons:
- First, the 3 gentlemen in the back seem to be watching. Nowadays, the referee, announcer... leave after the first few moves. But here, it looks like they are going to watch the whole game. Not only that, the way they sit remind me of some old movies about billiards (have you seen "The hustler"?).
- Second, again the 3 gentlement. That was in the 1920's and they were dressing in western clothes. I thought it was common after the WWII, but not so much before. But it's 3 out of 3.

Well, this was still a long time-format game (~16 hours?). So I don't think they stayed the entire time. Also, I believe Western business fashion was being accepted when Shusai was born and he's about 50 here. Could be that it took 25 moves to get the Cameraman setup.

My best guess is that they men in suits were bigshots at the newspaper sponsor rather than Go players. But that person in the back-right looks familiar for some reason though I cannot hope to guess who he is. The Nihon-kiin has some old photographs online but they are low resolution.

My best guess is that they men in suits were bigshots at the newspaper sponsor rather than Go players. But that person in the back-right looks familiar for some reason though I cannot hope to guess who he is.

The boy underneath the Christmas pudding is Watanabe Shokichi, a future Keiinsha member but also Karigane's future son-in-law.

The first wise monkey on the left is believed to the Yomiuri journalist Inoue Takuji. Second wise monkey is Muramatsu Shofu, novelist and colour writer (also keen amateur go player and friend of Go Seigen). He was just one of an array of colour writers used. The third is the autocratic Takabe Dohei, here Kiseisha's referee. The obscured guy is unknown but is thought to be the Nihon Ki-in's referee.

There is a view that the photograph was staged. Black 25 appears to be on the board but not White 24, and there are stones in Karigane's lid.

The game is the subject of my book Power: Honinbo Shusai defends the Nihon Ki-in.

Western suits for sophisticated Japanese men were then standard, and had been since the late Meiji. They started with military uniforms, then uniforms for people like Cliff Clavin. Other types of western clothes were also taken up by working men and women. A disastrous fire in a department store in which people wearing encumbering Japanese clothes could not escape was a major stimulus. But at the same time, Japanese textiles were a major hit in the West, and essentially laid the foundations for the famous shop Liberty in London. This shop and its Japanese connections are featured in the film Topsy-Turvey, and features a calligrapher giving a demonstration. This calligrapher was a Japanese artist living in London, and was known to the older generation of London go players who attended the Nippon Club. T-T tells the story of Gilbert & Sullivan and their operetta The Mikado. Gilbert's house (now a posh hotel) is a short walk from my home, and one of my daughters got married there. See - small world!

Ko-ko and Nanki-poo live on in Titipu! After all, is their world any stranger than the one represented by this game, where the circulation of the Yomiuri tripled after they started publishing it? H no Go was a dud compared to that!

John Fairbairn wrote:There is a view that the photograph was staged. Black 25 appears to be on the board but not White 24, and there are stones in Karigane's lid.

The game is the subject of my book Power: Honinbo Shusai defends the Nihon Ki-in.

Ah! I thought it was the camera exposure losing the stone.
This looks like a great game so it's too bad that your book is long gone from shops. However, I attended a tournament and discovered a copy of Meijin's Retirement game available in the local Club Library. They also have Power/Brilliance, Final Summit, 9-dan show down, and more. All I have to do is wait for my kids to grow up so I can do things on a weekday night.

John Fairbairn wrote:This shop and its Japanese connections are featured in the film Topsy-Turvey, and features a calligrapher giving a demonstration. This calligrapher was a Japanese artist living in London, and was known to the older generation of London go players who attended the Nippon Club. T-T tells the story of Gilbert & Sullivan and their operetta The Mikado.

I have no idea what I just watched but if anyone is interested in Topsy-Turvey here's a clip in the Japanese manner:

Here's to 100 more!

Re the western suits business, I just remembered something this morning, and as it happens it relates to the founding of the NK in 1924.

The NK was formed by the unification of competing factions, who had all found themselves adrift after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1924. There was a unification conference at the famous (western inspired) Imperial Hotel. Iwamoto Kaoru (then 4-dan) went along, but was turned away at the door. He had gone in kimono and clogs but was told he had to dress as a (western) gentleman to enter the hotel’s portals.

I didn't realize there was so much behind the choice of clothes.

Also, I didn't know that the photograph might be staged. And I didn't know those 3 men, but I didn't think they were just some spectators.

It looks like we might be getting more Nihon Kiin history. They just announced a new website for the centennial celebration: https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/special/100anniversary/

For now it seems to just have an introduction by the president along with the Go History timeline that was already buried somewhere on the Nihon Kiin websites (I've seen it before). You can also donate.

We did get another article! I'll summarize but know that I just used computer translation. This was too long for me to read with a dictionary and grammar guide. But the computer translations are half-decent at normal Japanese article text (whereas Go commentary is just bad).

First of all, thanks to editor for recognizing that Iyama's anime-hairdo was too awesome to be lost to Nihon Ki-in's annals. Can you imagine how Cho U and Yamashita Keigo felt losing to this punk kid? I should dig up some old newspaper articles from the early twenty-tens.
"20 year old punk wins the Meijin"

========== Honinbo, Kansai, Hashimoto, Takagawa, and Sakata ==========
The article starts by covering some of the early drama between the Kansai area players and the new Nihon Kiin. Apparently they collected donations for the new institute but instead of sending the money to Tokyo they used it to build the Kansai Kiin locally. Fair enough I think. The article goes into then-Honinbo Hashimoto Utaro, who is the topic of a GoGoD article I got really into.
1952 - 7th Honinbo nanabango (shichibango? actually here it's not ban "go" but ban 勝負 shoubu) Tournament, game 1. Takagawa Kaku 7dan (left) with Honinbo Hashimoto Utaro (right). Takagawa won with the 5th game.
By the way, I thought I could just learn when to use nana vs shichi for 7 until I discovered that I own a bottle of shichimi togarasi AND a bottle of nanami togarashi

/GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/Groups/GroupsJp.htm (Skip down to Kansai Kiin)
"...None of that solved the Honinbo problem, however. Hashimoto was still the Honinbo and he was in the independence party... there were many who thought that, if the title had been taken away on the board, it should be recovered on the board. The crushing burden of being the Nihon Ki-in's champion was to fall on the frail shoulders of 31-year-old Sakata Eio 7-dan... Sakata was 3-1 up..."

Spoiler alert! The last 3 games were exciting. I reviewed the games but wasn't able to find much in English at the time. Only later did I discover the digital SmartGo book "The Honinbo Tournament - The Early Years." I was enjoying the read but always jump around. I think I'll go back and read Term 6 with Sakata's challenge. Later on Takagawa won. The article then goes on to list Sakata Eio's many accomplishments, holding most of the titles and winning over and over.

Also mixed into this article was discussions of them moving buildings which wasn't so interesting besides the Kansai drama. I'd like to learn more about the rivalry. Has the Kansai-kiin won any titles in recent memory? Will they? Does anyone still care about the rivalry? Are Kansai players the only ones that care? How does a player decide between Nihon Ki-in's Kansai branch and the Kansai Ki-in? Does this rivlary go all the way back to Genan Inseki? It must go back further right? Is there deeper history beyond Go?

========== Old Meijin to New Meijin ==========
This is also discussed in GoGoD: GoGoDEncyclopaedia/TBase/History/NewMeijinHistory.htm (more details)
1973: 12th Meijin, game 7. Rin Kaiho Meijin (back/left) vs Ishida Yoshio Honinbo. Check on Go Seigen there on the left.

My understand is that while the Mejin was being transferred from Yomiuri news to Asahi news (letting Asahi have both the Go and Shogi meijin titles as mentioned in GoGoD), Yomouri was given the Kisei. What's interesting in this article is that it says:
名人戦は朝日に移る、読売は最高棋士決定棋聖戦を作り、これを序列一位にするとの内容。
I had to actually read this one. My understand is that Yomouri's new Kisei tournament was specifically given the role of determining the top Go Pro and being the top title. I remember discussing this on here and guessing that because it awarded more money and was listed first that it was the top title. Which is right, but I didn't know that the Kisei was specifically deemed to be the highest title.

========== Recent Tournaments and Looking Forward =========
The article goes over the top players and mentions Iyama's dominance. What's interesting is that even the Nihon Ki-in questions whether Iyama's reign is over (like some newspaper did previously, I forget which). They ask whether it's Ichriki's time, or maybe it's the era of the "3 birds (crows) of Reiwa (2019 onward)" - "令和三羽" (羽 counts birds), also specified as crows elsewhere (令和三羽烏, 烏 crows specifically) to match the prophecies.

The article mentioned that in the good old days (Showa era: 1926–1989), business men preferred Golf and Go. Now the amount of Go players has dwindled. This is actually a bit unexpected to me and I still do not believe them. I do not think they are lying but I wonder what they are counting. Are they actually counting the number of amateur diplomas being sold? The number of competitors in tournaments? Go World subscribers? I don't know. But with the advent of computer Go I find it hard to imagine that the player base has shrunk... now I'm researching Japanese population growth. Indeed Japan's population has stopped growing much since the end of the Showa era and may even be declining recently. So hmm... maybe they do actually have fewer players...

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Sad to say it but this article was marked 後編 kouhen, which to my understanding means "later part" or last volume. So I don't think we will be getting anymore articles until the big day is here. Bummer.