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- From: davies@twics.co.jp
- Newsgroups: rec.games.go
- Subject: December Go News
- Message-ID: <34613@twics.co.jp>
- Date: 31 Dec 92 19:07:59 GMT
- Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan
- Lines: 47
-
- ================== DECEMBER GO NEWS FROM JAPAN =====================
- For the Japanese go community, 1992 ended with a slight shock. Ma
- Xiaochun, the Chinese Mingren, defeated Kobayashi Koichi, the Japanese
- Meijin, in the Meijin-Mingren play-off. The shock was all the greater
- because Kobayashi, who takes China-Japan competition seriously, had
- never lost to Ma before and had an enviable 29-4 record against Chinese
- opponents overall. Ma himself did not seem to think he had much chance:
- his announced aim was not to win the match, but simply to win one game.
- He accomplished that aim by a point and a half on December 15 when
- Kobayashi became over-generous in the late middle part of the first
- game. Kobayashi came back to win the second game on December 17 by
- resignation, but Ma took the third on December 18, again by a point and
- a half, through expert defensive play. Now it will be up to the Japanese
- super-go team to seek revenge when they face Ma next year.
- * * *
- In the fourth game of the Tengen title match challenger Yamashiro
- Hiroshi, down to his last chance, decided to challenge the common wisdom
- that territory is best made at the sides and corners. Concentrating
- wholly on the center, with the willing cooperation of his opponent Rin
- Kaiho he surrounded a kidney-shaped area worth about seventy points. In
- the end it was common wisdom and Rin, however, who triumphed by 3 1/2
- points. Rin has his fourth straight Tengen title and the thirty-second
- title of his career.
- * * *
- Rin's victory meant that in 1992 all seven of the main Japanese
- defender-challenger matches were won by the defender: Kisei (Kobayashi),
- Judan (Takemiya), Honinbo (Cho), Gosei (Kobayashi), Meijin (Kobayashi),
- Oza (Fujisawa), and Tengen (Rin).
- * * *
- Meanwhile, though Yamashiro may have fallen short in the Tengen
- title match, at the end of the year he was on top in the Honinbo League
- with a 3-0 record. Rin and Kobayashi Koichi trail at 2-1.
- * * *
- On the same day that Rin beat Yamashiro, Aoki Kikuyo defeated
- Yoshida Mika in the challenger-deciding game of the Women's Meijin
- match. For a third consecutive year the title match will pit Aoki
- against Sugiuchi Kazuko. The match starts January 20.
- * * *
- The fourth and final found of the Kirin Cup found the Tokyo A Team
- facing the A team from the Kanto-Koshinetsu region, roughly the region
- surrounding Tokyo. According to go theory, when one side surrounds the
- other the surrounding side has the advantage, and so it turned out, but
- the advantage was mighty thin: only half a point, the margin by which
- Cho Chikun beat Takemiya Masaki in the deciding game. Two amateurs,
- Nakazono Seizo on the Kanto-Koshinetsu A team and Hu Yanhua on the Tokyo
- A team, won in all four rounds to finish with perfect scores, for which
- they received the perfect reward: a year's supply of Kirin beer.
-