Oooops! Sorry!

I could nearly feel my head away from my body!

The heroine of this thread winning against Umezawa / Yoshihara Yukari in Female Honinbo. In her first April win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3LvpxciK8I

I am totally surprised to find Nihon Kiin livestreaming on youtube.

Sumire had a big week, with 3 important wins. The 1st win on Apr 12 earned her the right to play in main Female Saikyo tournament, while her other two wins were in the major mixed tournament, so they count for promotion by wins and prize money. April updates are in blue.

April games:

[1] Apr 1: Defeated Yoshihara Yukari(6p) in Female Honimbo 40
[2] Apr 5: Defeated Okada Yumiko 6p in Meijin 47.
[3] Apr 12: Defeated Hiromi Mizuno 5p in Female Saikyo 6
[4] Apr 14: Defeated Hara Masakazu 3p in Kisei 46
[5] Apr 15: Defeated SAKAGUCHI, Ryuzo, 9p in Judan 60

Here is a summary of all her tournaments (she is out of tournaments with black names). She is still active in tournaments with red names:

Major tournaments (eligible for prize money rule and promotion by wins):

• Kisei 46 - Defeated Ha Youngil (6p, 35 years old, rating 3040, #530) on Feb 4, Tajima Shingo (但馬　慎吾, 6p, 2879, #805) on March 11 and
  Hara Masakazu (原　正和 3p, 23 yrs, 3059, #495) on Apr 14. Will play TORII, Yuta (3p, 28yrs, 2964, #668) in last game of prelims. If she wins, she will make it to C league, which would be a huge achievement. See West block 3 in https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/kisei/046.html.
  
• Meijin 47 - Defeated Okada Yumiko 6p on Apr 5. Will play NOBUTA, Shigehito (信田　成仁六段 6p, 60 yrs) next. See Tokyo 16 in https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/meijin/047.html
  
• Honimbo 77 - eliminated on Dec 3, 2020. Honimbo 78 should start around Oct 2021?.
• Oza 69 - eliminated in Oct 2020. Oza 70 should start in March 2021
  
• Tengen 48 - Will play Atti Tormanen (1p) in 1st round. See Tokyo 23 https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/tengen/048.html
  
• Gosei 47 - Defeated Rafif Shidqi Fitrah (1p, 18 yrs) in first round of qualifying on March 29. Will play Ryoya Takeshita (竹下　凌矢) 1p next. See Tokyo 4.
  
• Judan 60 - Defeated Minematsu Matsaki (6p, 2698, 57yr old) in first round of qualifying on Jan 21, 2021 and SAKAGUCHI, Ryuzo, 9p on Apr 15. Will play GOTO, Shungo (8p, 2979, #645) next. See Kansai/Chubu frame 8 https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/jyudan/060.html

Mixed tournaments counting towards promotion by wins:

• Kiryama (aka Agon) 28 - defeated Yasufumi Tahara (7p, 46yrs, 2714, #1000) on Mar 1st and MATSUBARA Taisei (6p, 49yrs, 2772, #948) on Mar 15 but lost to Koyama Kuya (4p, 24 yrs, 3171, #332) that same day. So she is out of Kiryama 28. Kiryama 29 should start Feb 2022.
  
• Ryusei 30 - Defeated Araki Issei 4P on June 29, 2020 in final of prelim B. Lost to Nakano Shoya 1p in Prelim A. Ryusei 31 should start in April-Jun 2021?
• Hiroshima 15 (Young Carp). Eliminated in Nov 2020. Hiroshima 16 should start Sept 2021.
• Okage (Thanks Cup) 11 - eliminated on Apr 6, 2020 by Xie Yimmin. Okage 12 should start in March 2021
• SGW Nakajima 3 - did not participate? SGW 4 should start in Aug 2021
• Globis Cup 8 should have started Jan 2021

Women-only or other tournaments not counting for promotion:

• Shinjin (King of New Stars) 46 - eliminated in Nov 16, 2020. Shinjin 47 should start in Nov 2021.
• Okan (Crown) Cup - Not eligible (seems to be for Nagoya branch only).
• Kansai Go open 1: eliminated in Nov 2020 in the semifinal of class C (this was in main tournament). Kansai Open 2 might start Sept 2021 (but she might not be eligible to play anymore).
• Wakatake 5: Lost to Hiroki Muramatsu 6p in first round on Nov 29, 2020. Her opponent eventually ended up in 3rd place. It seems to be Kansai only, so she will probably not play in it next year.
  
• Female Honimbo 40: Defeated Saeka Iwata 1p on Jan 25, 2021, Takao Mari (髙雄　茉莉, 1p, 19 yrs) on Feb 18 in prelims. Defeated Yukari Yoshihara (吉原由香里 6p 48 yrs) on April 1st in first round. Will play Nyu Eiko (3p) next. See https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/jp/fhoninbo/40.
  
• Female Meijin 32: Defeated Akiko Tsukuda 5p (2741) on Jan 7, 2021 but lost to Ueno Asami in last qualifying game on the same day. Female Meijin 33 should start in Nov 2021?
  
• Female Aizu (aka Tachiaoi) 8: Defeated Chiharu Miyamoto 1p on Dec 17, Fumiko Sakakibara 6p on Jan 18, 2021, Akane Tatsuni (辰己　茜, 3p, 38yrs) on Feb 11 and Wang Jing Yi (王　景怡, 3p, 35yrs, 2769, #934) on March 18 in last qualifying game, so she has made it to the main
  tournament. Will play Konishi Kazuko (8p, 49yrs) in 1st round. See https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/jp/tachiaoi/8
  
• Female Kisei 24 - Lost in 2nd round of main tournament to Aoki Kikuyo 8p on Oct 26. Kisei 25 should start July 2021.
  
• Female Senko/Saikyo 6: Defeated Tamura Chiaki (3p, 42yrs, 2648, #1029) in 2nd round of qualifying on Mar 10th and Hiromi Mizuno 5p (水野　弘美, 53yrs) in last qualifying game on Apr 12, so she made it to the main tournament. See West 4 of https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/senko/006.html

My calculations show her results to be as follows:
In 2021: 18-2 (#2 in overall 2021 Japanese ranking by wins on gotoeveryone web site).
In 2020: 21-17
Overall: 58-28
Go rating: 2952, #692

Promotion to 3p: 4 wins (40 required):

• Gosei 47: 1 win (ongoing)
• Meijin 47: 1 win (ongoing)
• Kisei 46: 1 win (ongoing)
• Judan 60: 1 win (ongoing)

Sumire has been playing with the Japanese national squad in an internet match against Taiwan. In two rounds played so far, both Sumire and Ichiriki Ryo scored 2-0. Overall the match score was 3-3 in both rounds. Sumire beat Yang Zixuan 4-dan (female, 18) and Yu Lijun 3-dan (female, 21). Further rounds will be played at 2-monthly intervals, but maybe with different players.

Sumire defeated Nobuta Shigehito in the #47 Meijin prelims.

Next is Cho Sonjin. I wish it was another Cho

It looks like she has to win one more before Cho. She plays the winner of Komatsu Hideki vs Tanaka Yuki? Then Cho Sonjin, then Michael Redmond if she keeps winning.

You are right. My mistake.

If she ends up playing Michael Redmond, perhaps he will make a video. That would be nice. But there is still a long way before that.

Her game against Goto Shungo in the 60th Judan was up on Tygem, not that common an occurrence for Japanese games outside of big titles finals (and even then...). I guess Sumire's results interest the Korean public too.

Here is the game (possible transcription errors mine).

Don't forget that Sumire has studied in Korea and speaks some Korean.

19 wins for only 2 losses
90% of victory, really impressive, I hope she keeps it up!

_________________

True I had forgotten about it. Thanks!

I found this game interesting.

Nowadays, it seems that AI style is everywhere, all players are playing 3-3 invasions early and so on. And from what I got from Michael Redmond's videos "AlphaGo vs. the world", it seems that AI style is territory oriented. Yes, there are different AI, AlphaGo itself has evolved,... But, even so, in this game black (the younger player) won with a big territory. I don't think it was the plan from the beggining, it was not Takemiya style (tm). From my point of view, the game just developed in that way. But the result was different to other games I have watched lately.

Sumire has moved into the challengers' semi-finals of the ladies' 8th Aidu Chuo Hospital Tachiaoi Cup, having defeated Konishi Kauko 8-dan. She will now face Nyu Eiko 3-dan. If she makes it through to the final, she will be up against either Ueno Asami or Kato Chie.

Sumire's quarter-final game was one of the queerest pro games I've ever seen - almost certainly the most one-sided. But not in the usual sense. In this case it was because 146 out of the first 156 moves were down side of the board, and mostly on the edges. On top of that, several of the moves made me blink in disbelief. Here is the one-sided portion - and even at this stage this side is still far from finished, with huge sacrifices by Sumire.

Remember those bleating voices that said Sumire shouldn't have been allowed to become a pro by recommendation?

Yes, they have disappeared.

But I have been thinking about this, that perhaps we misunderstand the real reason WHY this was done. Obviously, in spite of how her strength was (correctly) judged, one might have thought a short time as an insei wouldn't have hurt.

Wouldn't have hurt HER.

But what would it have done to the confidence of her fellow insei?

LG will be disappointed that you don't regard their cup as an international title.

But mention of that brings up a very relevant point. Yang got a special promotion to 7-dan and the day after got promoted to 9-dan in 2019 for winning the LG Cup. The special promotions are ubiquitous now. But basically they are a form of promotion by recommendation, aren't they?

Nakamura Sumire has just won the Kisei Prelims, goes into C league to have a (long) shot at the title.
B+5.5 against Torii 3p.

If I am not mistaken, 14 wins and boom, she is Kisei.

Funny fact: she would be allowed to lose more games in the title match (3) than in her way to become challenger (0).

This just in, Sumire's game against Nyu Eiko in the Female Honinbo:

It's been mentioned here that Sumire has won her way into Division C of the Kisei league. From what I've seen, the point being focused on is that she is female. Fine, but it seems more remarkable to me she is youngest player to achieve this - 12 years and 2 months.

But, while reading about this achievement, I was rather more interested in a comment on how she is improving. Her Kisei achievement is not a one-off fluke. Her record this year is already 21-2 and she has an 11-game winning streak. According to pro opinion, what has made the difference from last year is that she is no longer making unreasonable attacks which end up leaving her own weaknesses exposed.

It's fascinating that such a simple thing as a change in attitude can have such an impact even at pro level.

I don't think the main point here is that she is female, but her age. The whole thread began with that, but well, your opinion. BTW, for those who really care that she is female, you can follow the achievements of Sumire and others in another interesting thread very easy to find

About the change in attitude: your words reminded me of a video I saw some time ago, by Dr. Baduk. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VuBOrnk5UE

The comment was the same: she was strong, she fought well, but she lost because at a certain point, she went for a wild attack that shouldn't work (and didn't). But if she could improve her judgement, she would be much stronger. Time has proved him right.

And it is surprising that even at pro level, this can make such a difference. One tends to think that getting stronger means deeper reading ability, or proper counting, or knowing more joseki. But just making better choices (better direction of play) is an important skill too.