Ueno Asami

[John Fairbairn]

It seems about time we had a thread for a lady.

Ueno Asami is about to play her good friend Fujisawa Rina in the Women's Honinbo. It will be her first best-of-five match and her first 4-hour game. But she already has won the Women's Kisei twice and reached the last four of the Aidu Chuo/Tachiaoi and Senko Cups. Even better, she has defeated three top male players on her way to the semi-finals of the Ryusei, the first female to get this far in a mixed event in Japan.

On this last achievement, her reaction was: "Eh? What just happened?" I think that was quite a widespread reaction!

But she is working hard and thinks she knows where she can improve even more. She typically has games on Mondays and Thursdays but also trains at a study group for four days a week. In addition, she has recently taken to carrying a PC around so she can study with AI support. She feels her fuseki and positional judgement are not quite up to scratch. She also finds she starts to lose concentration after the first ten moves or so. But she doesn't feel too far away from top international level among the women, although she grimly notes that she has already lost three times to Kim Ch'ae-yeong, who is hardly the pace-setter. She thinks she needs to improve both her reading and concentration to make a mark internationally, but that is something she is keen to do.

Perhaps as a means of improving her concentration she has taken up going to a batting centre (I assume baseball is meant) and she has got up to facing pitches at about 60 mph. She also recently tried bouldering for the first time, with Rina.

Although people keep complimenting her on her recent good form, she herself just feels she keeps losing. As of September she has lost 18 games this year (2019). She has won 29, but it's the ones that got away that bug her. She would also like to improve enough so that she can be satisfied with the content of her games. Winning a game but not playing well is something that she dislikes.

The focus soon will be on the Honinbo title match with Rina (it starts on 9 October). The two have played before, of course, and things change at the board. Away from the board Asami feels as if Rina is like a big sister to her (she is 18; Rina is 20), and she calls her Pontan (after Rina Pontan, who seems to be some social media celeb famous just for being a famous). But at the board "big sis" feels like "Rina Sensei" to her. Asami notes also that Rina is hard to play against psychologically, because Asami is the type who likes to read the opponent's face - e.g. "Does she thinks she's ahead?" But Rina is too hard to read. But Rina is not invincible and only has a slender lead in one-on-one games between them.

We have the makings of a modern, female Genjo-Chitoku rivalry. Roll on October!

[Ferran]

I've only been able to find about half a dozen sgf between them; there don't seem to be those many SGFs of Fujisawa Rina, all in all, in the sources I have available. I'm not going to be able to renew my GoGoD in a while, I'm afraid, but do you have any, there?

Take care.

[xed_over]

38th Female Honinbo finals, game 1
Fujisawa Rina vs Ueno Asami


stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqg_12K_Rg

[phillip1882]

i don't understand why on move 104, white didn't respond H18, and when white ignored, why black didn't.

[jlt]

Killing the center would be much bigger than saving a small white group. Black could not afford to play H18 until her central group was safe at move 119. Then White played H18.

[Tryss]

White group on top is "only" worth ~25 pts, so if white tenuki, it get 2 free moves in exchange for giving 25 pts

[Gomoto]

Browsing with KataGo:

[xed_over]

game 2


video stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON9IOeXrykE

[Tryss]

Nice save/kill !

[ez4u]

Ueno won game three on November 6th to take the lead 2-1 in the best-of-five series.

[silviu22]

Ueno won game three on November 6th to take the lead 2-1 in the best-of-five series.

Ueno Asami won game 4 on Nov 15th so she is the new female Honimbo. She hold Kisei and Honimbo now. Fukisawa Rina holds Tachiaoi Cup and Saikyo, but I have a feeling they are less prestigious. I think Ueno is the #1 Japanese female player right now.