Something for the weekend, sir - the pleasure of seeing one of the old Chinese Meijins in action - Shing Dingan aka Shi Xiangxia - against an amateur nicknamed Ironhead because he loved to fight and preferred to lose large (as here) if he couldn't win large. A wealthy salt merchant, he would pay the pros 1 silver tael for every stone of his that was taken.

This particular game, though (circa 1750), despite the high winning margin, is most notable for perhaps holding the record for the most points (i.e. zi - Chinese points) involved in sekis.

These ancient games with sekis are also valuable in giving us clues as to whether and how group tax was applied in ancient Chinese games.



I now hand you back to my colleague TMH who would like a silver tael for every game he has transcribed.

Ha, that's quite the interesting condition to play under. A long ko fight could start to get expensive!

As a matter of interest, do you have a guess on how many pro games are still out there to transcribe? Any danger of running out?

I couldn't put a figure on games remaining, but I am fairly sure that I am into the last big job lot of games, that of Kido magazine from 1924 onwards. When I visited Japan and could find the complete games from the Castle Games or the Honinbo tournament or of Kitani, Takagawa and Hashimoto Utaro, I knew that there may be hundreds of games to do. Now, I do not really think that any such collection, with a lot of games we don't have. will turn up.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
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But aren't there hundreds of new games played every year? Or was Phil Waldron refeerring only to classical games?