Now, as to why I did this book... I have an abiding interest in go journalism, and the encroachment of AI into professional commentary caught my interest. But, with the demise of the English Go World there has been a real paucity of commentary and description of the modern go scene in English. Feeling noble, which I do for a few seconds each year, I thought it would be good to add to the meagre supply. But, in any case, first teenage Meijin is a bit special, isn't it?At the end of 2019, Shibano Toramaru became the first teenage player to win a major title in the Japanese go world. When he became the new Meijin, it was almost as if the story of the manga Hikaru no Go had come true.
This book tells the story of the title match against Cho U. The first four games are presented with traditional commentaries, but the momentous fifth game - regarded as being of unusually high quality - combines tradition with AI analysis, which confirms the quality.
The coverage of the title match is preceded by a substantial account of the history of the Meijin title. The games themselves are also given with their atmospheric content and biographical details.
An index to topics in the Go Wisdom theory corpus presented in earlier books is also given.
Find the book as print-on-demand on your local Amazon site. The ISBN is 979-8-631285873 and the title is The First Teenage Meijin. 190 pages, same large colour-enhanced format as my other recent books, Genjo-Chitoku and Games of Shuei.
