In #43 we saw that the oldest known game in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, dated from 1930. Shocking as that may have been, it's surely even more of a surprise that the oldest known game of ordinary go in Korea is less than 100 years old - from 1918. To a small extent that's due to the fact that sunjang go prevailed in Korea until the 1930s, though even there records don't go back much further. It is also significant that this game features a Japanese player. This chap, 56 at the time and what we would now call a local pro, had set off on his travels to escape from a wife his mother had made him take. That was thirty years previously, and in that time he visited not just Korea but also Taiwan and.... Europe. Does anyone know if he appeared on the radar here? (I could try Franco Pratesi's "EuroGo" but I'm afraid that would mean a trip upstairs.) If he did, there is a strong chance that his games would be the oldest known here as well.

The Korean half of the pairing was the top sunjang player of the period, and also father of a very famous statesman of the same name.