This young player keeps winning in the major Japanese tournaments. goratings has him at #148 now (14th Japanese player) and he is 8-0 in Kisei . He is only two players away from challenging Iyama Yuta for Kisei title.

According to games listed in goratings he has played Shibano Toramaru twice this year and won both of them. See https://www.go4go.net/go/games/byplayer/1609.

According to https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/ranking/?country=jp, he's second by the number of wins this year (37-9) among Japanese pros after Shibano Toramaru. But he has a far better percentage of wins (80%). He seems to have won 8 of his last 9 recorded games from go4go.net.

He is still in Kisei (will play Kono Rin on Oct 22 - see https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/jp/kisei/43). He needs 3 more wins to become the Kisei challenger.

He is in main draw for Gosei (will face Yamashita Keigo - see https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/jp/gosei/44).

Squeaked by to survive in Tengen preliminaries - https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/jp/tengen/45

He's also won his first game in Ryusei: https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/jp/ryusei/28.

He's only 3p now, but his rank will probably jump soon.

Of course, I might just have jinxed him with this post and he might start losing .

It really is October*. I've come here from gotoeveryone just to ask about him . If he qualifies, would he become the youngest challenger for the Kisei?

Does anyone know what his playing style is like?

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Very impressive young man by current Japanese standards, but he won't be winning international titles anytime soon, as many of his fellow Chinese and Korean teenagers have done before him. He'll turn 19 soon and time is rapidly running out.

Are there any promising strong players from Japan under the age of 15?

I'm really too weak to tell, but I played through a bunch of his games back in 2016, and a few recently. Nothing really jumped out. There's some AI influence, some games that are pretty calm, a few where he makes a big moyo and it just turns to territory, some amount of fighting. *shrug*

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Occupy Babel!

No miracle for Onishi to become Kisei challenger, he lost to Kono Rin by half a point following a mirror go opening, maybe inspired by Iyama and Cho's recent Meijin game:

Onishi is in semifinals for Judan, having defeated O Meien(9p) in a very close game. He plays Murakawa Daisuke (8p) next.

He qualified for the main Tengen tournament, and he is still active in Gosei and Ryusei. So he is active in 4 tournaments right now.

Bit off-topic but where do you follow the Japanese leagues? I'd like to follow them but can't find a good place for it.

Onishi seems to be a player to follow.

This is the beginning of his game today in Kisei B league.



I don't have the result of the game or the rest of it but Onishi already played a lot of unusual moves while Cho aka Chang aka Zhang tried not to be provoked.

And while I'm at it the broken link above is probably this game:

He seems to favor... unusual openings. If this was HnG, he'd be from Kansai

Take care

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一碁一会

That iron pillar in the center

It's the first of the Rama spaceships.

Take care

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一碁一会

It appears Onishi Ryuhei is on a leave of absence since last November and has forfeited every game since then. The flying iron pillar game appears to have been the last game that he played before the leave.

I saw a twitter posts suggesting he was ill. I don't know if it is accurate. Another twitter post noted he was seen playing online in March, for the first time in a long time. I'm also not sure how accurate any of this is. I didn't find any clue to when he might be returning from the leave.

Besides forfeiting 3 games in Kisei B league so far he also forfeited a game in NHK. The two games that he played in NHK last year offer some contrast between his standard style and his onishi style but unless he returns soon the fans will be really starved for some onishi style.

Maybe it is mundane, no flying iron pillar here, but the first round NHK game was a strong win against Sumire, he seemed to out read her and have easier time living then expected.


The second game was really something different! Arguably, it is not that unusual that NHK games are unusual but here it is.