I know it spoils the fun when facts get in the way, but ...



The Japanese didn't cancel it. The Japanese company NEC did, and if you look at NEC's history of sponsorship of sporting events you will see that this fits a pattern. It is apparently their strategy to commit to a medium-term length of sponsorship only - perhaps they want to switch marketing targets every now and then, which seems plausible commercially. They stick to that whether the results are good or bad. For example, they sponsored the English football club Everton for about ten years and quit in 1995, they very year that Everton won the FA Cup. Perhaps NEC wanted to quit at the top. If so, the lopsided results would fit that pattern, from ther point of view. But the original aim of the NEC go exchanges, made explcit at the time, was to boost the level of go in China. This had the strong support of the Japanese government which saw it (correctly as it turned out) as a way of normalising Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. In other words, it was not a gang of Japanese go players trying to crush weak opposition for cheap glory. Nor was it Japanese players trying to test themselves. Their job was to "lend their chests", as the sumo wrestlers put it, so that pupils could practise pummelling them. Job done, I'd say. Good time to quit.



Since Japan takes part in every international event, and even hosts some, and Iyama himself has not only taken part in international events and even won one (and lost another only because of a rules quirk), how does this translate into walking an isolationist path and turning inwards?

There is a case to say that the Japanese are inward facing, but that is not because they are turning inwards: they have always faced that way in sponsorship terms. Japan's flirtation with international events came when certain companies (Fujitsu, Toyota, NEC, Ricoh etc) tried to expand markets, especially in China. Economic woes in Japan and the rise of Chinese competitors apparently put the kybosh on that. The core companies that have always supported Japanese go, the newspaper companies, in contrast are mostly inward facing. Their newspapers are written in Japanese. Not many outside Japan want to read Japanese. So these companies can be considered naturally inward facing. This is not much to do with go players directly, but we can certainly see why they might want to align themselves with their sponsors.



The fact that Japanese players take part in all international competitions and often lose (though do sometimes win), while their magazines also report the international scene avidly, doesn't seem to square with face saving, does it? In any case, face saving in Japan doesn't really mean what most westerners think it means. It includes components such as making sure the other side doesn't lose face. In the case of go events, for example, when invitations to international events come up, or when re-scheduling is proposed, they have to be mindful that Japan has two competing go associations, the Nihon Ki-in and the Kansai Ki-in. This rivalry is sometimes quite bitter, and conspiracy theorists may wish to note that golden-boy Iyama is a Nihon Ki-in pro but is from the Kansai. I'm not a comspiracy theorist myself, but putting one over on the Kansai Ki-in would be more important than playing with foreigners to some fans and even some Nihon Ki- people I have met. Think Everton-Liverppol, Redsox-Yankees, etc etc.



What continuous decline? The fall-back in the temporary Hikaru no Go blip hardly counts as continuous. The underlying trend in government figures has been fairly stable for quite some time, especially if you factor in the declining funds available from local councils. If you factor in the unknown numbers playing on the internet there has probably been an increase. If you are referring only to professional go in Japan the same question applies: what continuous decline? There has been a difficult period of adjustment to the digital age, certainly, but adjusting is not usually classed as decline. Except in scale, it's not much different from the difficulties faced by, say, western go clubs and go publishers. These activities may be declining but that doesn't automatically mean go in the west is declining.

Since Japanese professionals have embraced a huge raft of changes, including laying off admin staff and cutting pensions, I'd say they have already adopted a different attitude and have accepted plenty of pain.

Maybe facts are not so boring after all...

The criticism of Iyama and the Japanese go association(s) doesn't impress me. The boom in weichi in China was jump-started by Japanese pros visiting China specifically for that purpose in the early 1970's, at a time when political relations between China and Japan were not so good. The South Koreans also benefited from "teaching" by Japanese pros. And, for what it is worth, the Japanese go associations still accept some Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean players. Iyama has more than once demonstrated that he can play at a level with the best of the Chinese and Koreans. But I really think the fascination with who is "the best" is an empty concept. No one, even the computer program that defeated Lee Sedol, is anywhere close to total mastery of the game. And "best" is time limited. If you like to discuss such issues, how about why Korean and Chinese players' times at the "top" seems to be relatively short. Let's be grateful that the Japanese go world is still offering support for "outsiders" (e.g. Antti Tormanen) making teaching tours and sending pros to Western go congresses.

The Japanese DO attend international tournaments, most of them just can't get past qualifiers. Kono Rin just beat Chen Yaoye at Ing Cup, so there is that.

The majority of Japanese professionals who attend preliminary tournament stages are younger or newer professionals. The Nihon Kiin website seems to follow them closely, exalting every win (when you make up a tiny proportion of entrants, it's probably completely normal in any case), but losses by these young, generally lower Dan professionals give no reason for "shame", if that is at all an aspect; the top Japanese players generally don't attend preliminaries. Except for a few younger top professionals such as Iyama 7 Crown, there isn't as much point in players who have already all but reached their peak to compete against international competition to become stronger, but it does make sense for the younger people to do so, maybe gaining motivation in the process. To me, despite it's significant problems in attaining a internationally competitive level, the Japanese Go world seemed to demonstrate the most admirable attitude towards their older professionals-- One might rather be a pro there for that reason. But at this moment in time, they also appear to be relying on the next generation of strong players, as Iyama was a couple of years ago (still is to become stronger?), and he was playing mostly against Japanese pro's to attain that strength. And now, it may be that they will be even stronger, as there is now an internationally high level of Go in Japan. Japanese pro's cannot 'run away' from top 20 level competition even if they wanted to. It may be in the form of Iyama Yuuta. (Is this similar to the role Cho U played?)

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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.

In an attempt to steer this thread back toward the original topic, let me just say, "Congratulations, Iyama Yuta."

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be immersed

And in an attempt to steer it away again, but not in the "Japanese pros are rubbish"direction, Kono Rin just beat Park Younghun in the 2nd round of the Ing cup, after beating Chen Yaoye in the first*. Winning isn't transitive and it's just 2 games, but as Iyama far outperforms Kono in Japan this suggests Iyama would be competitive rather than outclassed amongst the world's top players in the Ing cup.

It's such a shame about the scheduling conflict with the Judan, can anyone shed a light on my questions about how scheduling of pro go tournaments works? I don't bemoan Iyama not playing in the Chinese city league or most international tournaments, but the Ing cup is special: it's the oldest, richest and most prestigious international tournament and only happens every 4 years. A missed opportunity.

*Remi's goratings puts Kono (#67 3389) beating Park (#7 3519) at 27%, and Chen (#18 3454) at 35%. I also recall got to the final of the (blitz) 2014 Asian TV cup, beating Li Qincheng and Park Junghwan before losing to Lee Sedol.

In China, the Go Association has an central role to coordinate the tournaments. So if I were to hold my own tournament, I need to talk to them to find a proper time slot. Then the Association also assists the top players logistically. For example, many top players have additional passports in addition to their private ones - just in case they need to make multiple international trips (BTW, Chinese are still required to get visas to travel to most countries). I am also sure top players also get helps getting their flight and train tickets.

Then, no matter how well you plan things, you cannot predict which player will win what game, so having some flexibility in the system is a must! The Chinese are doing well in this area. For example, the League A tournament has a special policy saying that if some key players in a team have international duty, it is permissible to postpone the whole team's match. This happened a lot in practice.

The Judan match that was at the same time was played in Yugen no Ma at the Nihon Kiin so would theoretically be more easy to move around than some events. However, especially for the big three, they are planned well in advance throughout the country (and sometimes outside the country). It's a bit hard on the local supporters and sponsors to change those dates. I imagine also just to make sure to get the big 7, he wouldn't have changed his schedule for this year.

A special commemoration page giving informatoin on results towards hepcrownry.

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/special/7crown/index.html

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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.

An interesting example of refusal to alter the schedule is the 1986 Kisei match between Kobayashi Koichi and Cho Chikun. As I recall, Cho had been injured in an accident played one game from a wheelchair. It was out of the question to postpone games because one of the players suffered a serious injury, though it was Cho who insisted on playing while recovering.

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be immersed

The defence of Iyama's septuple crown didn't get off to a good start, losing to Takao Shinji in the first Honinbo title match game:



The 2nd game is currently paused between days. Iyama lost a load of stones in exchange for centre thickness that didn't seem enough compensation to me but these things are so hard to judge. He does have a lot of ko threats with them and is currently fighting a ko which he amplified, but black has quite a few threats too. The game is at move 77, the following moves are my exploring of the ko threats (I think white will solid connect in the top left, because e17 would give black more threats. And then I'm not sure if white will connect n8, because where is his next threat, m4? Black can ignore that and fight, though m8 losing a liberty from the threat is quite a handicap.
http://eidogo.com/#3O0NPvib

To elaborate, does this mean "it was out of the question for Cho" or "it was out of the question, but social norms dictated that it be Cho who said that they would play, rather than Kobayashi or the sponsor"? Sorry for the pedantry, but I just don't know who would have been committed to playing on the existing schedule. For that matter, I don't know how it would play out in a Western context--I feel like there have been substantial disputes over scheduling in Chess championships.

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Occupy Babel!

For what it's worth here is how the matter was presented in Go World 44, p. 6

Takao compromised and gave up the ko, but I'm struggling to understand why as it looked difficult for Iyama to me. For move 80 Iyama played s7 not s5 which I suppose is slightly better if you are not going to play the other one given it takes a liberty of the outside stones. And then Takao played g17 rather than e17 as his threat: e17 results in a not so good shape if you don't win the ko, but means you have 2 big threats, whereas g17 is only 1 threat, and this ko is big enough (and white amplified it with b9 so losing it turns b9 into junk) I thought that was worth it. Or would white have captured at e16 immediately if black retook the ko, or perhaps have ignored e16 connect to resolve the ko? White also played o4 as a ko threat and black simply blocked at o3. This makes sense if black wants to keep fighting the ko, but given he had already indicated his intention to compromise and go for the outside with e11 I'm wondering why Takao didn't answer o4 at k3. This is a thin move (but I don't see anything working for white if he is allowed to break into the corner at o3, did I miss something?) which leaves many ko threats, but if he is conceding the ko that's not so relevant (though makes fighting future kos harder) and k3 is a very useful move on the outside. For example it removes all oomph from the white turn at k5, and can aim at the j6 nose attachment. This is not purely academic possibility, if you look in the game the j6 nose tesuji would have worked on move 149 if black had a stone at k3.

See game continuation (it's the variation at move 80) and variations in http://eidogo.com/#y9hrN5j5

Edit: And Iyama won in the end. Takao tenukid from his centre group to half kill (a ko remained) the top right, Iyama killed some stones in the centre by winning a ko (in which Takao lived in the bottom left), and then Takao had to live in gote with his centre left group, and Iyama created and lost the top right ko to re-kill the bottom left and win. So I can't help but wonder if Takao eased off the first ko too much as the burden of that group gave Iyama a target for the middle game fighting. If anyone finds some professional commentary on this game please let me know!

Iyama won game 5, winning the title 4-1. This is the fifth straight year he won, so if they follow previous practices, he'll be recognized as the 26th Honinbo.

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Occupy Babel!

The Nihon Ki-in has announced that Iyama has qualified for honorary Honinbo status.

For five in a row, you get the honorary title when you turn 60 years old. If he can get it ten times in a row, he gets the honorary title immediately. More of a Fairbairn question, but Iyama is the only Japanese born Honinbo title holder that I know of that didn't take a second name while holding the Honinbo title. I wonder if anything will change now.

I'm surprised none commented on the fact that Iyama defended his Gosei title. Not only that, it was the fifth time in a row which means he will become honorary Gosei?

Yep, he'll get that as well in the future. Now it's the road to 10 straight to get the titles immediately.