The semifinals of the Seiko Cup have been played today.

Gazzawhite has already commented a bit in the Sumire thread, but it's an Amazon event, so I'd like to add a few things...

Sumire beat Rina, for the first time. It's their 3rd official game, but the probably know each other well, since they are in the Ichiriki study group, and the national squad. It was a close game in the end. But Sumire held well, although there were a couple of moments when...

In the other game, Nyu Eiko beat Ueno Asami. The hammer got hammered, and Nyu will play the final, well deserved.

This final will be important. For some time, the winner of the female tournaments has been either Fujisawa or Ueno (and most of the times, the runner-up too), so a new winner will bring some fresh air to the scene. I will be rooting for Sumire, but if the winner is Nyu... I can live with that.

The Seiko Cup finished.

The winner was Nyu Eiko 4 dan. Congratulations to her.

For most of the time, the game was even or with Sumire leading. But in the beggining of yose, she made a mistake, acording to AI, and the situation changed. Nyu didn't waste her chance, and won her first title.

In the audience (and here as well), most people were rooting for Sumire. So young, a new record... but the goban doesn't know about this.


This should be a boost in morale for Nyu, and a good lesson for both of them. In the future, I hope they will do even better.

Very cool for Nyu Eiko. I remember they played before months ago and Nakamura Sumire won. But Nyu had been doing well, even in the open tournaments. I was excited when she made it to one of the main tournaments--Gosei I think.

I wonder whether Sumire winning would have set why record, and it's a bummer she felt so bad about this.

But I don't feel less happy for Nyu. She's strong and earned the win. I hope to see her playing more in the main tournaments.

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The Senko Women's Strongest title is one of the major women's titles. At least it gets your face in the back of Go World. Looking there I see that Fujisawa Rina had won the past 5 times (of 6).

So Nyu should definitely get on the cover of Go World for this right? I don't know if I've seen an interview with her yet. This is a big deal!

If Sumire had won, she would have been the youngest title holder ever. That's the record she was aiming for. When she became a pro, she said that she wanted to win a title while she was in school. Sumire could probably see the goal very, very close.

I feel bad for Nyu. She was the winner. She had to fight hard, as much as anyone else, and she deserves the title. But overall, all I read is about the player who lost. "Sorry for spoiling everything, how selfish of me" she must be thinking. But of course, she didn't say this. The few comments I read about her talk about her nice words after the game.

You must know how to lose, and how to win.

It seems appropriate to jump in here with a rare post. And I make an offering to the fact checking gods for doing so without my usual confirmations.

Of course we all love to follow Sumire, but I want to amplify pajaro's remarks and put in a good word for the victor.

It was a pleasure meeting her at the US Go Congress in Wisconsin where she won the US Open. She visited with her mother, Niu Lili, and was following in her footsteps - mom had visited two of the early U.S. Go Congresses. Niu Lili can be seen with Go Seigen in the Surrounding Games film, and she is the sister of Niu Xianxian, Michael Redmond's wife.

So, Western Go fans, certainly U.S. ones, should certainly reserve some fandom for her.

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

That's interesting and makes sense. I had seen her listed as his pupil, though I'm not sure what that formally entails and whether it means anything for seasoned players.

I agree with the sentiment given here. By the way, apparently Nyu is also friends with Shibano Toramaru, as he said when he congratulated her on Twitter... Oh funny! Scrolling through the comments I see one in English (so it popped out) and notice that it's Michael Redmond's mom (Noni) on Twitter congratulating her great niece Nyu: https://mobile.twitter.com/nonichinski/ ... 4591901697

Redmond has videos with his mother telling stories on his channel. I can find this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUQ0cXW1I2E

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I looked again and it was this Gosei tournament (currently happening) in which Nyu Eiko made it into the main tournament rounds. She lost to Yoda Norimoto in the first round. Looking more at her profile and results, I don't think she is still progressing in another other of the 7 main tournaments. Nyu was progressing through the women's Honinbo tournament but lost to Kato Chie 2-dan last month. This month is the next round and it's when we will see Ueno Risa play Nakamura Sumire on 7/25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFhauS_EShE

Fujisawa Rina has won the Senko Cup 3 times.

You're right. I see what I did. I looked at the list of titles/faces and mistakenly saw 5 for Aizu Hospital, which was also Rina's face, above her face for the Senko Cup.

She lost two faces. But I'm happy to see new faces. It was mostly Iyama and Fujisawa anyway...

Yesterday the Army picked some wins.

Ueno Asami beat Kondo Toshiki 2-dan in the B prelim of the Gosei. Asami will advance to the A prelim. Suzuki Ayumi, who beat Ishida Yoshio in the same prelim, will face O Meien 9-dan for a seat in the A prelim.

Also in the Gosei, but prelim C, Sumire beat Ito Masasi 5-dan, in a moyo-ish game. The other Ueno, Risa, had a game in the Tengen, prelim C. She won her game against Takanashi Seiken 9-dan. I have seen him before, but I can't remember when...

And in the B prelim of the Meijin, Fujisawa Rina beat Miyazaki Ryutaro 7-dan.

These are the results I know of. Quite a busy day.

Ah, and Nyu Eiko has a new picture in her NK profile

Risa vs. Sumire: Live in 19 hours (July 25th at 10am in Japan). Since I've been following Sumire I have a better idea of her strength than other players. I'm excited to see how Risa holds up.

I'm also really excited that Kobayashi Izumi will give commentary on the game. I've seen her so much on Twitter (@cho_kobayashi) but I don't think I've seen her commentary, maybe just an appearance on stream once before., so I'm excited to see her commentary. I just checked on the 2 Cho girls are they aren't doing as well as Risa seems to be doing.

The other Ueno sister, Asami, will play Suzuki Ayumi at the same time, same event. Also broadcasted, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sodp5dyrBR8

The winners of these games will play in the semifinal. It could be the first official game Ueno vs. Ueno. Asami has better chances. I'd say... about 60/40 against Ayumi. Rina has played Sumire before, and has always lost. One of those games, btw, set a record, because their ages combined was under 25, youngest ever. A record hard to break. But Rina has been doing well lately, so we'll see. Even so, I'd say it's 70/30 for Sumire.

And in the same room!


Well, things went like expected, or not. Let's see.

Asami beat Ayumi. The game was more or less even in the begginning, but when she took the hammer, attacked and killed a group, that was it. Nothing else to do. I said it was 60/40 for Asami, but perhaps the gap between them is a bit wider (and it will be even wider in the close future).

Risa, on the other hand, played well in the begginning. Better than Sumire. In the first half of the game, she was ahead or even. Holding well and with good prospects. But Sumire has a good control of her head. Also, I think that she usually has hidden plans. AI doesn't always like her plans (so, she seems to be behind). But if the plan works, it's very effective. This game was like this. There was a ko that could decide the fate of a big white (Risa) group. Sumire didn't begin the ko for a long time, and when she did... she gave up the ko to attack another white group, that eventually died. Sumire could make this attack when white played the "right" threat. A local threat, it was obvious that Sumire would answer it. But no. Cho U and Izumi Kobayashi, btw, pointed to this before Sumire played the secret answer. I thought that seeing this was a test of strength. In the end, the plan worked and Sumire will play Ueno Asami in the semifinal.

Ueno Risa lost the game, but I think that she showed her improvement. I have seen Sumire play other young players. It's not that she always wins, but she is above most of them. No one can say otherwise. But, although Risa has always lost, she can play Sumire face to face. They are going to play again and again. For this game, I said it's 70/30 for Sumire. Next time, odds might be closer.

Good news.

I only watched the Ueno Risa vs Nakamura Sumire stream but saw Ueno Asami walk through the back of the room and was confused until I accidentally clicked on her own game later on.

Of course I have no idea, but my impression was that Sumire was playing her usual aggressive style and Risa was parrying the attacks. Sumire's moves just were not working well compared to how she can bully some players. I was expecting Sumire to bully Risa but instead Risa played well and Sumire seemed to win by Risa's oversight. A win fair enough but this tells me that Risa is much stronger than I expected.

We just saw Nyu Eiko and Sumire battle for a title over Asami and Rina Fujisawa. So I wonder if there is going to be more changes in the Women's title holders sooner than I would have expected just a month ago. Eiko holds a title. Sumire will get there sooner or later. And maybe Risa is good enough to get there too? Of course, Asami and Rina are still strong. Would be fun to have more women players at the top.

For the open tournaments we are seeing more title holders already. It will be excited to see if Shibano can break though again.

By the way, it was fun to have Cho U join in the commentary with his wife on stream.

Fujisawa Rina posted that she had fever and a positive PCR corona test thursday morning, and thus couldn't play her match in the last preliminary of the Honinbo tournament. Hope she gets well soon.

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

The Go Seigen Cup will be held 30 and 31st, this weekend.

Fujisawa won't play due to covid, but Nyu Eiko will play instead. Let's see if winning a title boosts her morale.

The rest of the Japanese is formed by Ueno Asami, Nakamura Sumire and Suzuki Ayumi.

It think it will be broadcasted in youtube, but I can't find the links right now.

It's on now https://youtu.be/CjI7A6Nb0_I

Have a good weekend everyone.

Just read a tweet from Shibano and I wonder if he is being dismissive of Murakawa Daisuke (Kansai 9-dan) or if he was more being supportive of Fujisawa Rina. (Amazon Army and Japanese League are starting to blend here).

There was a tweet from @KK_joryu about Fujisawa Rina (女流本因坊戦•KK共同通信 -- women's Honinbo•Kyodo news）。I believe this is an official account.　It mentioned that she (藤沢) beat Murakawa Daisuke (村川) a few days ago in the semi-final match of final qualifying (最終予選, which is after Section A): https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/honinbo/078.html.

So, cool stuff! Amazon Army! Hooray Hooray! BUT THEN Shibano replies with さすがです, which I'm not familiar with but means something like "as you'd expect." Wow! Really? That's a bit harsh on Murakawa considering that I'm pretty sure he's expected to be stronger (right?). He achieved 9-dan by winning 2 title matches and he's still a top player.
https://twitter.com/abih_sarot/status/1 ... 2100927488

Often phrases in English and Japanese are said to mean something similar but they are actually used in different ways so that they aren't actually equivalent. So perhaps Shibano wasn't being harsh? He seems like a nice guy and makes nice tweets. But they are often abrupt, as this one is. Maybe it was meant more like "as I hoped" or "as I expected of her".

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Bottom-line: Rina is 1 win away from entering the Honinbo League Battle!

She would be the first Amazon in there. This last game is against Otake Yu 6 dan, who I've seen before, maybe doing commentary on the YouTube channel. I don't think he is nearly as strong as Murakawa but maybe a good match for Fujisawa. Don't be surprised if you see me come back with "sasuga des".

Be reassured, he was being nothing but complimentary. In such cases sasuga desu just means, "Wow, I'm impressed!" or "That's fantastic" and means essentially the same as sugoi or subarashii.

The "as can be expected" meaning exists, of course, as is reflected in the strange kanji used for it (流石 or flowing stones), but, as you rightly observe apparent equivalences often don't work out that way in practice. It's not much different from when we say "not bad at all" in English when we really mean "Sasuga desu"

Sasuga is one of a small class of words that is a both an adverb AND a defective precopular noun (meaning it has no predicative form) AND a pseudo adnoun. With ancestry like that, you can see why it may come out as if it was a swan that turned into an ugly duckling. Also, the 'flowing stones' kanji is usually affirmed to be a "literary allusion" by the sort of people who wear pince-nez, but no-one has ever turned up the actual citation, as far as I know.

If I remember correctly, Otake Yu is responsible for stopping Amazons short in at least two recent major tournaments, so I wouldn't dismiss him as easy in any way. I think he is also comparably young.

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

Otake Yu is not only younger than Fujisawa, he is also 1 month younger than Ueno. On mamumamu's rating list as of the end of July, he is higher rated than either of them. Interestingly, on that list, Ueno Asami has caught up to Fujisawa Rina. They are ranked 32nd and 31st respectively. Otake is ranked 25th. Murakawa is 8th by the way.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21