I've just been watching Commander-in-Chief on dvd, hoping it would be as good as West Wing. Ruined, as it turned out, by the strident feminism of making Madam President into Wonder Woman with cojones, whose only flaw in 18 episodes was not having heard of the language of Kurmanci (and I hadn't either ).

As someone who used to travel round with Margaret Thatcher, and who once enjoyed a kip back from airport to Downing Street sleeping on her best dress (note I said "on" not "in"), I have a healthy respect for women in power. But I think the sort of dross in C-in-C does women no favours, so I thought I'd mention a more realistic yet still impressive achievement by a real woman.

Having just won Osaka TV's Women's Kisei, Xie Yimin has notched up won her 10th consecutive title in Japan. Actually Xie is far from the first to do this. Sugiuchi Kazuko, Aoki Kikuyo, Kobayashi Reiko and Kobayashi Izumi are all tied on the same figure, but Xie is the youngest. She only became a pro in 2004 but won her first title in 2006. She currently holds the women's versions of the Honinbo, Meijin and Kisei. She was the youngest female ever to qualify as a pro in Japan at age 13, although that was aided by the fact that there was an age limit of 15 until 2003 (not that anyone looked like beating her before that - Kobayashi Izumi was 18).

Admittedly Xie has not yet rattled the men's cages in the same way that Izumi did, but she's still only 21 and has made an encouraging start in this year's Shinjin-O. She also top-scored in the Asian Games with 5-1. Last year, there was a series of games between Rui Naiwei and top females in Japan, a belated attempt to use Rui to improve Japan's strength in the way Korea did. Xie was the only player to beat her. (Incidentally, this event is a strong candidate for world's weirdest go event title: Green Go Stones Female Pro Exchange Club - sometimes English seems like a foreign language to me!).

Although Taiwanese, Xie seems to be very popular in Japan. This may be because she seems happy in doing the grunge work of giving interviews, dressing up in a kimono, and playing top officials in the Nihon Ki-in's branches.

If you are a fan looking for a young person's career to follow, Xie would be a very good choice.

As someone who is following this particular advice pretty much since I started playing in 2006 (well since 2007)...

Why are they publishing results of the games when the games itself are not yet published? (WBaduk doesn't have it, Kin Go News seems to indicate they are for later publishment as well, I am not into Japanese or Chinese however). The Nihon Ki-in has a photography of the board, but this is not enough to reconstruct the game. Anyone offering a game record?

PS I am going to expose my inferior knowledge of the English language now... but is "consecutive" really the term if you win a title, do not win this title again and then start to win a bunch of other titles?

Xie Yimin is amazing and deserves a lot of attention, but I believe another Japanese woman pro has just set a new record: Suzuki Ayumi has now won four games in the current Ryusei (defeating four males). I don't believe any woman player has ever won more than two games in this event.

I too was wondering about the use of consecutive. I count 2 consecutive wins in the Female Kisei, 3 in the Female Meijin and 4 in the Female Honinbo. She also just won the Ricoh pair cup, and she won the Daiwa Ladies Cup in 2008-2009, but not in 2010.

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Occupy Babel!

I'm sorry, I meant ten titles in total, and the same applies to the other players mentioned. I probably had consecutive on the brain because that's how I watch dvds - 18 episodes on the trot in the case of C-in-C. No doubt that addles the brain.

I wish we had ongoing "professional name" threads. Not going to happen, I guess.

Xie Yimin is now holding the record with one more title, adding her 4th Female Meijin. She also won against Seto Taiki 7d (who made a successful debut in the Honinbo league this year, entering and finishing 4th) in NHK cup.

Hope it is ok to care for go results now...