Review: - Slate and Shell Sale - Masterpieces of Handicap Go

[John Tilley]

I bought a few books in Slate and Shell's end of book distribution sale, which included the two volumes of Masterpieces of Handicap Go. As the price was so low, I decided to buy them, not expecting that much. There are some real gems here, in Volume 2 there are 2 games by Honinbo Jowa against Shinomiya Yonezo, they played a 10 Game match in 1821. In all the games Shinomiya took 2 stones. The book contains Games 1 and 8. However it was the comment that in Game 7 Shinomiya captured a large group of 21 stones and thought that he had won, but Jowa exerted himself and managed a jigo, that caught my interest!

Fukui Masaki selects this Game 7 for a detailed commentary, in his book on Honinbo Jowa <in Japanese>, and an additional Game 11 for shorter comments.

Game 8 of this match is chosen by Takagi Shoichi for his 2 volume collection of "100 selected games" of Japanese Go, which covers the period 1573 to 2000.

You can find the SGF on GoGod or elsewhere.

Shinomiya was a self-taught amateur, but to play Jowa in a 10 Game Match at 2 stones and achieve 4 Wins, 1 Jigo and 5 losses is "not bad". <British Understatement>

There are some 38 handicap games in these two volumes - recommended. Fujisawa Shuko on 5 stones against Honino Shusai; Otake on 3 stones against Kitani.

These are the sort of games that whet the appetite!