Today it was the first day of the first game of the Meijin.

Cho Chikun was the main referee of the game (?), sitting next to Kobayashi Satoru. After the game began, everybody at the table left (sorry, I don't know the right terms for this) and I noticed that Cho needed help to stand up, also for walking away from the room.

Has anything happened to him? Some accident, surgery...?

Saw that. I assume it's mostly his old accident (1986) and age. He's not really old, but these things compound, a lot. If you watch for it, everyone acted like it was old news.

Take care.

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一碁一会

He had a similar problem few weeks ago. I don't remember which match it was but it looked dramatic — getting help standing up after sitting on the floor. This time he clearly asked Kobayashi Satoru for a hand before trying to stand up.

Tonight I had the opportunity to ask a friend of mine, who knows Cho Chikun, about this. Apparently, these are some left-over effects from the traffic accident that he suffered many years ago (he had to play a match with Kobayashi Koichi sitting in a wheel chair with his arm and leg in a cast, IIRC). Ever since then, he has had difficulty sitting on the floor to play long games. However, the problem has become more pronounced as he has gotten older.

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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