2nd game of the female Kisei.

Sumire won! W+0.5

It seems to have been a closer game than the first one, with Asami leading at the begginning and Sumire coming from behind. All goes to the 3rd game, next 6th.

We will have more of Ueno vs. Nakamura soon. The deciding (perhaps) game of the female Meijin, and also (perhaps) the second round of the Shinjin O.

According to current ranks, odds are about 70% Asami, 30% Sumire. But I guess that the gap is closing faster than the ranks can follow.

Super Sumire Sensei, and she beat Ueno Asami in a fast game!

What I find amazing is that Sumire won in yose.

I have the feeling that yose is usually difficult for young players, because it is not fun at all. It's more interesting to attack and kill. Even joseki is more interesting than yose. But of course, it's also an important part of the game. Be weak in yose and you lose points (and games) without even realizing what went wrong. Of course, pros know this and they are not weak. But still, they have their weak points. Asami is know for her attacking style, and for neglecting yose, although she seems to be overcoming it. But Sumire seems to be on a good level. That makes me thing that she will improve faster than other players.

Well, she is already improving faster than many other players... but I hope you see my point.

She does indeed seem to be good at both the endgame counting phase and the earlier boundary-making phase.

As an example of the former, the drawn-out final-dame-point battle she had with Kim Ta-yeong last August in the Chinese women's league seems to me to be the best proof. She won by 0.25 even though she has nugatory experience of Chinese rules.

But the second aspect is the more interesting one. If you accept number of games that end in resignations as a measure of aggressive play, the overall average in the huge GoGoD database is 65%. But Ueno Asami has 78% and Fujisawa Rina 77%. In stark contrast, Sumire has just 63%.

The way she keeps the game always within reasonable bounds, by paying attention to the boundary plays from the beginning, seems consistent with her style, at least as I see it. Many (most?) players take the shotgun approach to attacking, seeing the board as a kitchen garden being overrun by rabbits. These are attacked with a barrage of scattergun pellets which can damage the cabbages and carrots, or even the garden fences, as much as they do the coneys. But Sumire seems to take the Monarch of the Glen approach. Very, very early in the game she identifies the one magnificent stag she wishes to cull, and she stalks only it. Often she ends up making a clean kill with a single shot. Sometimes, of course, the wind shifts and the stag senses her presence and bounds off. But Sumire has not damaged the heather or the moor all around her. The boundaries remain intact. Nor has she compromised or endangered herself. I sometimes wonder whether this ability to focus so intently on one thing is actually a result of her extreme youth. Babies can play with a rattle for ages. Toddlers. too, can play for hours with one thing - such as the cardboard box their expensive toys came in at Christmas. They seem to get bored (or flustered) when there are too many alternatives.

As another example of this Attack & Kill approach, who else to remember but Masao Kato? He, too, improved his yose skills as he grew older, or so I was told.

The next game will be female Kisei (NHK time), the next female Meijin (3 hours) and the next, if things happens, will be Shinjin O (3 hours too).

I don't think none of them will win all 3 games. But if Sumire could win only one...

Armies attract war correspondents. Female ones go back at least to the 18th century. The Amazon Army now has a bemedalled one. Kayama Yoshiko has just won a special prize at the 40th Japanese Go Journalists Club awards. She is responsible for many of the cover photos in Go World, including the dolly-bird ones.

But she is still called a "cameraman" in Japanese (i.e. using the English word)!

Sugiuchi Kazuko 8-dan, who turns 96 very soon, has set a record for oldest win, it seems. She beat Shibusawa Machiko 2-dan - less than half her age - in the 62nd Judan C preliminary.

She next meets 19-year-old Yokota Hinano 1-dan, another of the new special recommendees. She won her Round 1 game by beating no less than Sakai Maki 9-dan.

Old soldiers never die!

The female Meijin league is nearly over. Quite different to last year.

Then, the big names got most of the wins, with a little girl becoming the black horse and challenging for the title. This year, the surprise was another one (fight for survival). Asami just beat Sumire to get her 5th win and nearly the challenge position, while Risa, with an excellent performance, is now 3-1 and has a chance to get the 3rd position. If she beats Sumire she will also help her sister. The only chance left for Sumire is to beat Risa, wait for Xie Yimin to beat Asami (quite unlikely right now), and then win the play-off. It looks like another match Fujisawa-Ueno is coming.

According to JK, Sumire could have won (again) against Asami. But she was ahead in the final stages and went for a safe move. Too safe. This probably shows some lack of experience by Sumire, and also that the gap on the board is narrower and narrower. Really scary.

In the fight for survival, Kobayashi Izumi is already demoted, and Xie Yimin and Suzuki Ayumi have only one win each. Xie (1-3) has to face both Ueno sisters, and Suzuki (1-4) has to play Nyu Eiko (2-3). In this game, even the winner might not avoid demotion.

Wow! It's an honour that we share similar styles！

Although I always heard that concentration is an ability lacked by young people、 but perhaps that's just a modern trend。

World Senko Cup will begin next 3rd.

Japanese players are the usual: Sumire, Nyu, Asami, Rina.

Good luck!

site、Livestream　Day 1 March 3rd　with commentary, without、Day 2 March 4th, Day 3 March 5th！ This is hype!

I see from Nikkan Sports that the Army's latest recruit, drummer girl Yanagihara Saki, has had her first taste of battle. On 27 February she took on Takemiya Masaki in the Agon-Kiriyama Cup at the Nihon Ki-in. She lost but, leaving aside the press interest, was obviously bewildered by the new environment. For example, she didn't know where to park her mobile phone. Takemiya, 60 years older, tried to put her at her ease.

Saki thus becomes the youngest Nihon Ki-in professional as of today. Her debut had been allowed, exceptionally, to begin any time after 1 January rather than the official 1 April, but for reasons unknown it was delayed. She is 12 years 4 months old, so in terms of age at 1-dan she is fourth behind Sumire (10 years 0 months), Fujisawa Rina (11 years 6 months) and Cho Koharu (12 years 4 months). Fujita Reo of the Kansai Ki-in is the youngest 1-dan (at age 9 in 2022-09) and still the youngest active player, but he is a mere boy.

Is early debut age a plus? Sumire's record since qualifying is 138-66, and Rina's is 399-234. But Koharu's is 2-9 (and her big sis Kosumi is also in the doldrums on 21-44) - mixed messages there, though maybe having a famous player as a father is sometimes a handicap? And to misquote Lady Bracknell (founder of the Reading tournament?): ‘To have one pro parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to have both as pros looks like carelessness.’

Saki sounds like a normal kid. Favourite foods ramen and sushi. Likes table tennis (knotwilg, please note) and manga, but does not cite Hikaru no Go as an influence. Her favourite comic is Detective Conan, a high-school detective who likes to assume the name Jimmy - but he doesn't wear a Jimmy hat (shame!). He sports a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker. The idea of Sherlock calling himself Jimmy would have a Brit in stitches.

But Saki's not a normal kid, As a pupil of Hong Malk-eun Saem, she gets to train with the likes of Shibano Toramiru. Now he's a guy I could imagine as a Jimmy - even one with a Jimmy hat rather than a real Tam Photoshop expert anywhere? (But make sure to keep the red toorie).

Oh my godness!! Then what most likely happened is that Fujisawa Rina sensei thought her favourite Anime would be good to introduce to some of the younglings. What if Hong's dojo has an Army of Detective Conan fans thanks to Fujisawa Rina? At the very least we would have trained Anime Detective Experts whenever there is a suspected case of pro misconduct。

Perhaps we should start explaining board positions in Table Tennis Terms!

Zhou Hongyu, who's selection for the tournament over Yu Zhiying may have seemed odd but was justified, proved too much for Nyu Eiko and Ueno Asami. Fujiawa Rina wasn't really able to cause Choi Jeong much trouble, but the next match was a different story. Stronger at 14 years old than Xie Yimin ever was in her life, after a masterclass in how to easily dismantle only the current two-time consecutive Women's World Amatuer Go Champion, Nakamura Sumire came within a hairs breadth of what in my opinion would have been the biggest victory of her career, moreso than her winning the female Kisei. While Cho Chikun could make a group live the developed version of him, or perhaps we should say his shadow which is a meaning of the word senko, The Ultraviolet Assasin can stalk and kill a group with the same type of intensity. But she blundered it away at the end. However, it showed Sumire fulfilling the adage that genius hits a target no one else csn see, as even nine dans missed her strike on the vital point.

The final live on NihonKiin Channel
Korea https://youtube.com/watch?v=7ZnSWED27C4&pp=wgIGCgQQAhgB, https://youtube.com/watch?v=DmqvHbKAl6E&pp=wgIGCgQQAhgB

edit: KBaduk just replayed the moment Nakamura Sumire blundered. Choi Jeong physically jumped back in her seat when Nakamura Sumire played it.

A few interesting games today.

First, Ueno Asami won Xie Yiemin in their last game of the female Meijin league. She finishes 6-0 and doesn't have to wait for Sumire's last game to become the challenger. It will be another Fujisawa vs. Ueno match. The only game left is Sumire vs. Risa. The result is not important anymore (well, the loser won't agree...). Nakamura, Ueno, Eiko will keep their seat, and Yimin, Kobayashi, Suzuki are demoted. There seems to be a generational change.

Sumire played too, in her first qualifying game against Tsuruyama Atsushi 8-dan in the Kiriyama Cup. First and last, because Sumire lost. Tsuruyama is ranked more or less like general Fujisawa, but he has played in the Honinbo league and B Kisei league, so I'd say he is a bit ahead. It would have been a great win for Sumire. But not today.

And also, I'd like to say to Jo Bunen 2-dan played against Seki Kotarou Tengen in the 3rd prelim game of the Kisei. She lost. And? I took a look in the Fox Server, and for some time (first half of the game, more or less), she was ahead. What I'd like to explain here is that even players who are supposed to be not very strong, they can still play a good game and put up a fight. Top players don't win just because of their name.

It seems so strange seeing little Nakamura Sumire先生 at the extravagant Women's Kisei ceremony! I'm more used to seeing Fujisawa Rina there。

I thought there was a thread about Sugiuchi Kazuko and her winning games at her age. I couldn't find it.

To the point: today she won a game against Yokota Hinano 1-dan in the Judan.

Yokota is nearly 20 yo, and Sugiuchi is 96 years and 1 month old. New record! taken from his husband.

BTW, this game counts for promotion. How far must she be from 9 dan?

This question interests a lot of people, if you judge by how often it is asked on Japanese sites, and the lack of information about it from the Nihon Ki-in is one aspect of why they are doing so badly at keeping their fan base.

It's not just the numbers that are hard to find. It's how you are supposed to interpret them when you at them.

The current promotion rules state that you need 200 wins to get from 8-dan to 9-dan. Mrs Sugiuchi got 8-dan in 193. If you total up the annual number of wins for her since then, you get just under 300. In the early years of the period since 1983, the annual figures used to come with a list of the tournaments that were included, and a note was added that said other events were specifically included. But it was not actually specified that those given were the ones that counted for promotion. The list was different from today's, of course, but nearly all would count under the modern system. Possible exceptions for her were Women's Honinbo, Women's Kakusei and NHK. Events such as Shinjin-O and Shinei wouldn't have applied to her anyway.

It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that even after applying exclusions, she must be very close to qualifying. Indeed, it's a reasonable surmise that that's what keeping her going. After all, she must be competitive by nature.

Assuming she is close, the next question is when will she cross the line. She achieved 600 career wins in 2014 in 2014 and is now on 634. Factoring in the pandemic hiatus, she's scoring at least 4 wins per year, and that is her current total for this year.

Fingers and toes crossed!

Talking of competitive natures, I was intrigued to read that Sumire, after losing a game that ended a winning streak in some event last week, burst into tears so strongly that she caused a nosebleed. It seems she is regularly tearful when she losses. Just as well she wins so often!

This could go in the current Honinbo thread, that has become a thread about popularity of go.



We know that Sumire is competitive, but to the point of bleeding... You must be talking about the game she lost in the Kisei against Ryu Shikun. A strong opponent, and from what I have seen (JK, Kimura...) she had a good chance of winning. It seems that she is losing games against strong player for puntual mistakes (the blunder against Choi Jeong will be famous). But she will improve this in the future.

Please don't infer anything from nosebleed. There are people who are generally more prone to it (even just the weather changing is sometimes enough).

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.