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 Post subject: Segoe Kensaku and the Nihon Ki-in
Post #1 Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 1:00 pm 
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I'm researching what I can about Segoe Kensaku's life, which appears to me as a particularly obscure character in Go History despite his clear importance in it, and I stumble upon this on his very short wikipedia page: "An internal quarrel in the Nihon Ki-in led to his becoming an isolated, if very much respected, figure."

Does anyone knows what this quarrel was or any details about it?

Thanks a lot for your help.

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 Post subject: Re: Segoe Kensaku and the Nihon Ki-in
Post #2 Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 2:48 pm 
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I encourage you to read the book by Cho Hunhyun - Go with the Flow, published in 2018. There are quite some stories about Segoe Kensaku, Cho Hunhyun's teacher.

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 Post subject: Re: Segoe Kensaku and the Nihon Ki-in
Post #3 Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:00 pm 
Oza

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Quote:
"An internal quarrel in the Nihon Ki-in led to his becoming an isolated, if very much respected, figure."


If this is referring to what I think it is, I don't think it is at all well put.

I might not be putting it well either because I'm not prepared to look it up, but will rely on memory. Segoe spoke to a Yomiuri reporter around May 1948, and revealed to him the full damning details (as known) about Maeda finding a famous move for Shusai in his match with Go Seigen (Segoe's pupil, of course). The reporter broke the story, which caused more than a kerfuffle. I have never seen this described as a quarrel. Segoe himself brushed it off as a case of an off-the-record attribution being ignored, and in his autobiography he gives it short shrift as a "slip of the tongue" (zekka). Speaking as a journalist, I can say the circumstances of the OTR bit don't ring true. Factor in Segoe's intense dislike of Shusai, now conveniently dead, and you have enough to start wondering whether Segoe orchestrated all this.

Quite a bit later, in 1950, he did however resign as a Nihon Ki-in director.

That was after what was a major quarrel within the Nihon Ki-in which had faced a break-away group (the Igo Shinsha), but it was patched up and I don't recall any involvement by Segoe, or this being in any way a factor in his resignation.

However, there are other plausible factors that probably did affect his feelings about go; it is easy to sense a dissatisfaction on his part. Bear in mind he lost family in the Atom Bomb game, and there was no money in post-war go.

He may also have faced some criticism (from the Allies?) for his visiting war criminals in prison, but again this cannot be characterised as a quarrel. By his own account he wanted to spend time on spreading go internationally, and just possibly that was a reaction to any such criticism. Yet he showed no remorse about his prison visits. Furthermore, while he did therefore go to Hawaii, in 1950, and that visit gets meaty coverage in his autobiog, do remember that most of the Japanese emigrants to Hawaii were from the same Hiroshima region Segoe came from, and these were the people he played go with in Hawaii. (He later did Europe in 1961, though.)

A further telling point is that when he resigned from the Nihon Ki-in board, he walked straight into a board appointment with Toyo Pulp, a company which by pure chance had just been formed by rehabilitated war criminal Kishi Nobusuke, one of those he had visited.

He is far from obscure, but he is certainly a very complex character: an enigma wrapped in a mystery with the deviousness and networking skills that would have fitted him ideally for life as a diplomat in a different universe.

His reputation is nevertheless safe. He was granted an honorary 9-dan by the Nihon Ki-in around 1955, and from around 1958 he became go's possibly most notably decorated player: starting with the Medal of Honour with Purple Ribbon and eventually being appointed posthumously to the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, with later elevation to the Senior Fourth Rank.


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 Post subject: Re: Segoe Kensaku and the Nihon Ki-in
Post #4 Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 8:49 pm 
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Thank you, John, that's very helpful.

Just to clarify, I meant obscure in the sense that it's hard to obtain information about him, or at least harder than one would expect. Do you by any chance know of any English-language source on Segoe's life? I imagine The Go Companion might include something related, but it's impossible to find a copy.

johnsmith wrote:
I encourage you to read the book by Cho Hunhyun - Go with the Flow, published in 2018. There are quite some stories about Segoe Kensaku, Cho Hunhyun's teacher.

Thank you, I have read Cho Hunhyun's book. It's very interesting, but it only covers the last years of Segoe.

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