Following Iyama Yuta (no world ranking discussions)

[Elom]

And Kyo wins! Iyama sacrificed (or Kyo killed) his top stones in exchange for the attack on white's bottom left, but that remained a ko (so LZ's judgement black should have kept the dead stones dead for security seems validated by the course of the game), white lived in ko there in exchange for black getting 2 moves (and ko threat removal) on his big centre though bottom side moyo, but white made nice sabaki within and cut it down to size and won by resign. So Iyama loses his septuple crown.

He did hold it for about 291 days and 40 minutes .

[hyperpape]

I believe it's the first time Iyama has been swept. In every other match, he scored at least two wins.

2016 Meijin: 4-3
2008 Meijin: 4-3
2014 Oza: 3-2
2011 Kisei: 4-2
2014 Tengen: 4-2
2013 Judan: 3-2

[EdLee]

Iyama loses his septuple crown.

He did hold it for about 291 days and 40 minutes .

Did he hold all the titles only for one year ? Not for two years ?

[hyperpape]

He's held the septuple crown twice. The first time he held it for about half a year in 2016, but lost the 2016 Meijin to Takao. Both spans were less than a full year.

[Elom]

And Kyo wins! Iyama sacrificed (or Kyo killed) his top stones in exchange for the attack on white's bottom left, but that remained a ko (so LZ's judgement black should have kept the dead stones dead for security seems validated by the course of the game), white lived in ko there in exchange for black getting 2 moves (and ko threat removal) on his big centre though bottom side moyo, but white made nice sabaki within and cut it down to size and won by resign. So Iyama loses his septuple crown.

He did hold it for about 291 days and 40 minutes .

Sorry, 289 days and 59 minutes.

[John Fairbairn]

Obviously this thread is about Iyama but I'm surprised no-one has picked up on Kyo Kagen's achievement. Apart from the Gosei whitewash, in the current Ryusei he has just sailed through the win & continue preliminary with the maximum 11 straight wins.

In fact there were a lot of long winning streaks in this Ryusei, all by younger/newer players, and since the way the Ryusei works is that the last man standing gets a place in the final knockout but so does the player in each block with the most wins, this means the final knockout this year again looks very, very different from the more traditional Darby and Joan event. Perhaps the finals should be shown on C-Beebies/Sesame Street rather than the Go-Shogi Channel.

What I am hinting at is that maybe Iyama's glory days are over. Maybe it's time for a "Following Kyo Kagen" thread. Or, even better, "Following Fujisawa Rina." She got into the Ryusei finals by dint of four wins despite starting in the worst possible position - first (wo)man standing in her block. She had Kyo to thank for that. Normally two people would have qualified from his block (winner and most wins), but as he embodied both qualifying slots (there could be no others in his block with even 1 win), a special rule had to be applied: the player the best winning streak so far not qualifying was chosen. This turned out to be Rina - but even there was twist. She could normally expect to qualify with a 4-win record but in this case there was another player in the same group with 4 wins (and he wasn't the block winner), and so she would have lost out on prior grading. But Kyo's last win created the dea ex machina.

Incidentally, Cho U holds the record for consecutive wins in the Ryusei block preliminaries, with 12 (and Yamashita also had 11) but these were in the days when the blocks were much bigger than 11 games each. In the current structure, Kimu Sujun and Mizokami Tomochika had held the record with 10 wins (Iyama's max was 6 wins).

[Uberdude]

Even the Nihon Ki-in's English facebook post was "Iyama lost Gosei title" instead of "Kyo won Gosei title"

[Elom]

Obviously this thread is about Iyama but I'm surprised no-one has picked up on Kyo Kagen's achievement. Apart from the Gosei whitewash, in the current Ryusei he has just sailed through the win & continue preliminary with the maximum 11 straight wins.

In fact there were a lot of long winning streaks in this Ryusei, all by younger/newer players, and since the way the Ryusei works is that the last man standing gets a place in the final knockout but so does the player in each block with the most wins, this means the final knockout this year again looks very, very different from the more traditional Darby and Joan event. Perhaps the finals should be shown on C-Beebies/Sesame Street rather than the Go-Shogi Channel.

What I am hinting at is that maybe Iyama's glory days are over. Maybe it's time for a "Following Kyo Kagen" thread. Or, even better, "Following Fujisawa Rina." She got into the Ryusei finals by dint of four wins despite starting in the worst possible position - first (wo)man standing in her block. She had Kyo to thank for that. Normally two people would have qualified from his block (winner and most wins), but as he embodied both qualifying slots (there could be no others in his block with even 1 win), a special rule had to be applied: the player the best winning streak so far not qualifying was chosen. This turned out to be Rina - but even there was twist. She could normally expect to qualify with a 4-win record but in this case there was another player in the same group with 4 wins (and he wasn't the block winner), and so she would have lost out on prior grading. But Kyo's last win created the dea ex machina.

Incidentally, Cho U holds the record for consecutive wins in the Ryusei block preliminaries, with 12 (and Yamashita also had 11) but these were in the days when the blocks were much bigger than 11 games each. In the current structure, Kimu Sujun and Mizokami Tomochika had held the record with 10 wins (Iyama's max was 6 wins).

Kobayashi Koichi(HK), Sakai Hideyuki 8p, Yu Zhengqi 7p all in his steamroll...

I was wondering who of the young Japanese professionals would commence the beginning of the end of the Iyama era, most likely more gradual a transition than with Cho U 9p.

Kaminski0143 has a page analysing the growth of the young talents of today to the pros at their peak, and others in between. Fujisawa Rina 3p is at least class D , and there's nearly frightening stuff at the top.

[oren]

There was a big go event called the Hankyu Igo Festival in Tokyo. I don't have time to translate it now, but there was a funny back and forth between Iyama and Shibano.

https://twitter.com/sada0324/status/1029253717453758464

[EdLee]

IGS is relaying the 43rd Meijin title match, game 1, right now:

Chang Hsu , Iyama Yuta

On IGS, they use the Taiwanese(?) spelling "Chang Hsu" instead of the Japanese "Cho U". It used to be "Cho U" exclusively(?) on IGS, no ?
Does anyone know the logic or some recent administrative change in the Nihon Kiin that prompted this shift in how they spell Chinese-descent pro names (on IGS at least) ?

[Uberdude]

There is some English text and video commentary on the Meijin title match Iyama vs Cho from Michael Redmond here: http://www.asahi.com/special/timeline/4 ... meijinsen/. A big ko trade from a 3-3 invasion joseki to begin.

[Uberdude]

Quick Elf v1 commentary:
- pretty much every white choice in the lower left joseki was a mistake (block wrong side, jump should be hane at head of 2 and double hane or extend, hane corner should be extend, cut inside should be double hane outside) so after the squeeze Iyama was 68%. A good case study for Gomoto.
- Elf not fan of e5 hane though.
- wanted e2 as c8 ponnuki (it's sente or else a seki in corner) and then take g4 ponuki and sacrifice corner. I think hard for a human to sac like that given you don't get a seal and black outside groups not alive yet either.
- Cho's large ko threat creation at to left lost too much
- Cho should answer m18 invasion with m17 to keep connected instead of make ko direct
- Iyama answer Cho's threat slightly better, but taking stones not a big mistake (86 vs 84%). Black's next threat (ignored) would be l16 which makes a big upper left area seeing as top left threat was answered.
- Elf really didn't like the whole sequence of Iyama starting ko lower right. Preferred q13, seem to be because it's happy to take right side and thinks it can sabaki in white's lower side later starting with k9 reduction after white connects along P line.
- f16 ko threat lost a lot as it wanted to save those 2 stones with empty triangle later (it's painful to extract them but once you have white's cutting stones are floating in a black sea.
- p8/o7 not valuable and white is winning at move 115 (should have been peep not block).

Edit: game record:

[Uberdude]

Here's a playlist of Michael Redmond's commentaries and adventures with a parasol:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SkTVURQQ0S

[Bill Spight]

About the ko in the bottom left corner. Once White makes it a regular ko, it is big. Each ko play gains almost 16 pts., which is bigger than the first play in the game. However, as an approach ko its size depends upon who, if anyone, is komaster. If Black is komaster, White can capture one stone with sente, which takes away one potential point. So it's a 2 pt. sente. If White is komaster we divide by 4 instead of 3, so each ko play gains a bit less than 12 pts. (According to John Fairbairn, pros know how to calculate the value of this approach ko when White is komaster, so we may assume that Cho has made the calculation. A 12 pt. play is probably worth playing at this point in the game, or at least the loss is slight.) However, White is not komaster. Probably neither player is. White certainly ignored a ko threat to convert the ko to a regular ko. If neither player is komaster, then the value of a ko move lies between 2 pts. and 12 pts. How to evaluate the ko depends upon the rest of the board. A reasonable guess is that each ko play is worth only around 9 or 10 pts. Which means that White should not have started the ko at this point in the game, and White should certainly not have taken a local loss in the top left corner to make a ko threat or two. It might have been worth losing a couple of points in that corner if White could have become komaster.

[Uberdude]

Cho U won the 3rd Meijin game by 4.5. Iyama sacrificed some stones for a wall which Elf and LZ thought was too much and there was quite a lot of ups and downs and kos and trades but Cho held on for the win.