Anyway, the next match is March 22. And this is tenth consecutive win of Iyama Yuta against Murakawa Daisuke, according to Go4Go database.

This is actually bad for Japanese Go. Iyama, not at his top form and somehow being overplayed in international tournaments, still can beat every challenge in Japanese fairly easy.

What makes you say that he is not at the top of his game?

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I think Iyama Yuta has higher winrate when the game require both players to sit in Japanese style 'Seiza'.

They aren't required to sit in seiza, I don't think.

As ez4u hinted, I think Iyama is pretty much at top form (he's just 3 points off his highest ever rating on https://www.goratings.org/en/players/601.html and climbing fairly steadily over the years, with a flat period 2012-2014 and in 2016). But yes it's sad for Japanese Go that:
1) the young players like Ichiriki, Murakawa (actually only 1 year younger), Yo Seiki etc aren't taking games off him and he seems to be pulling ever further ahead of them. Some hope in Shibano. Maybe just need to wait a few years, it took Iyama some time to overcome Cho U.
2) he's playing too many weaker players which I doubt is good for his own development. Like when I was winning all the tournaments on (old) OGS, it's nice getting loads of trophies as a big fish in a small pond, but for best improvement you need to play stronger or at least equal players.

Well, perhaps it is because I am an Iyama's fan, but I believe he can do better in games with players of his strength, in other words international games. It is not only the result, but the way he was overplayed in recent games.

This time I might sound like by78, but the high ranking now is because he is having even a better record with in domestic games than a few years before, whitewashes all his challengers. And that's why I say it is sad for Japanese Go.

Seiza just means sitting up straight in a polite attitude and can refer to sitting on a chair. The Japanese rules require the players to sit thus at the start of the game, whatever style of room is used. The preamble refers to go being a traditional game and that traditions must be respected, and in practice sitting on the floor is clearly expected to be the default option for title games. We can tell this from the reference to players being expected to sit 15 cm from the board, and also from the references to the upper seat (kamiza) and lower seat (shimoza) and the precise locations for the scorekeeper and referee.

Nevertheless, the rules do not specifically say that players have to sit on the floor and they go on to say that where western or Chinese-style playing accommodation is used the necessary adjustments are to be made. It became common a few years back to sit at tables in ordinary games in Japan. This was a nod to having more players and so a shortage of accommodation but was mainly to defer to the increasing number of foreign players. In my experience, the Koreans and Chinese tend to make a similar distinction now between ordinary and title games, using straight-back wooden chairs and waist-high tables for the ordinary games but armchairs and low tables for the posh games.

Even in a Japanese-style game the players only start off in seiza. They soon lapse into sitting tailor fashion (agura) for most of the game, with some players sprawling in yokozuwari.

In practice seiza does tend to refer to the formal rules for kneeling on the floor but even so this is a relatively recent fad (the term and the nitpicking rules seem to date only from Meiji times) in just the same way that self-appointed etiquette "experts" invented U and no-U in the west.

In any event, I hope seiza does not join the goban, moku, kifu, jubango and other monstrosities in go. If you mean sit on the floor, say sit on the floor.

I understood seiza to mean sitting on knees with feet under bum, either on the floor or little chairs as in this picture from the recent Kisei title match (I don't know if they kept sitting like this throughout, but there are several photos of them in this position at various stages of the games):



I could see sitting in what can be an uncomfortable position for those not used to it as having some effect (but wouldn't most Japanese have spent longer sitting like this at school etc than Iyama has in title matches?), but think Iyama's greater strength, experience of title matches, mental fortitude and stamina, confidence, the psychological difficulty of being up against such a dominant player would be more important factors.


Iyama does about as well as I'd expect in international games, given that he has little practice playing equally strong people. The game with Murakawa reminded me of his game with Shin Jinseo some months ago in the Samsung cup: Iyama often has some weak group fighting with his opponent's weak group on the edge of overplay where if he can survive his opponent is in trouble. In Japan Iyama manages to save his group, and then kills his opponent, whereas internationally he dies first.

He won the NHK cup. In the final game he won by 0.5 if i'm not mistaken.

If I recall correctly, when Cho Chikun had been severely injured in an accident (hit by a motorcycle?) he had to play in a title match. The match could not be rescheduled, according to the rules, but as an accomodation to the injured Cho the players sat on chairs at a table, not on the floor. This was remarked on in the coverage of the game.

A prescient description of his loss against Park in the "World Go Championship" .

Yup. Against Shida Tatsuya. I noticed that in the first corner joseki Iyama played the same move as DeepZen vs Cho Chikun in game 1 (solid block on outside allowing the 2nd line miai tesuji) which Myungwan Kim heavily criticised as almost game losing and "you won't see in top pros games".

Black should've just tenuki-ed?

In the Zen game he recommended defending the corner like this (colours reversed from Iyama's game): corner base for strong group important. If jump at a answer at b is ok (this was despite this developing top side for black). And if black b (bad) then just block and let him go after small 2 stones as you go out and damage top.

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Seiza on thick cushions:Cross legged:

2nd Judan game today against Murukawa, who seems to be doing better in a game with large scale, but not so tactically complex, fighting.

Update: Iyama won: Murakawa's reduction that became an invasion only lived in ko instead of cleanly, and he didn't have enough threats.

Iyama won the 3rd Judan game today against Murakawa by 4.5 points, so defends his Judan title 3-0.

Iyama is stronger than Cho U was, the competitors are less promising than Iyama was. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but it really feels like you can bet on several years, if not as many as five any Japanese player draws even with Iyama.

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Occupy Babel!

Iyama begins his Honinbo title defence today, this time against Yamashita.

Update: Yamashita won by half a point.