Was Ishida Yoshio the referee for that game? That's what comes to my feeble brain.

Serves the Nihon Kiin right for requiring dame to be filled to avoid seki but inserting the loophole to allow them to be filled informally.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

It was Ishida, but he took an hour to decide so I imagine he took advice from the sponsors before he announced his decision.

However, this case rumbles on. O Meien in his 2019 book "The world's go rules" (in Japanese, but with mistranslated English name on the cover: Go rules in the world), gives a few pages to it. He accepts some (administrative) rule is needed to cover such cases but doesn't think what he calls the "Nihon Ki-in one" of formalising the playing out of the dame is the best one.

Because it's about rules, I didn't take much in between yawns, but I think the basic theme of his book is that Japanese rules are the ones most preferred by humans (but Chinese OK for AI). He accepts there are hiccups in the Japanese rules but they don't matter much in the scheme of things for experienced players. For new players he seems to favour learning a combination of what he calls capture and pure go, after which the transfer to normal go is trivial. Makes sense to people like me who think Martian go and its ilk are just about finding the far end of a fart.

Well, that's tricky, because of the new definition of seki and the resulting beast, the anti-seki. There will be times, as Jaeup's example illustrates, when the best thing is to allow an independently living group to become seki to avoid creating one or more ko threats. That decision not to fill dame has to be made during play, and you can't allow your opponent to fill those dame informally. IMHO, the '49 rules were superior to the '89 rules. It may not matter very often, but they changed the nature of the game, hopefully without intending to do so.

When the '89 rules came out, I was not aware of the loophole and simply filled the dame during play. I found, to my surprise, that it hardly slowed down the game any, if at all. To count the game you fill the dame anyway. Any loss of time is a matter of seconds. I doubt if the pros would take any longer than us amateurs to play out the dame.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Did Shibano play two games on Sept 23? According to gotoeveryone, he played:
[*] The 3rd Meijin title game vs Iyama Yuta on Sept 23 and 24 (win).
[*] In Rysei vs Koyama Kuya on Sept 23 (also a win)

He also seems to have played on Sept 19 (Kisei, win vs Mutsuura Yuta, the other B group winner) and Sept 20 (lost to Seto Taiki in NHK cup round 2). It seems very hard to keep up.

Is there any travelling involved?

The NHK and Ryusei games are television games, played earlier and broadcast on those dates.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

What is going on? Or, rather, what is not going on?

Shibano pulls back to 2-1 in the Meijin, almost a week ago, and gets a mere passing reference? Hardly worthy of a performance in which he seemed to recover his form at last, after being knocked back in the Honinbo by Iyama.

But on top of that was the nature of the game itself. An ikken tobi shiamry, no less. An early pincer. Not a single 3-3 invasion until move 115, and even then it was an encroachment rather than an invasion. Not a shoulder hit in sight. Not an early contact play in sight. This was a real human game, for heaven's sake.

And the setting for the game with go's most ancient title reflected that. I think it was the first title match ever in Yamaguchi, but they were there because they were NOT celebrating some new-fangled wizardry. Instead the setting was the sexcentenary of local boy Sesshu Toyo - that's Battle of Agincourt timescale BTW. Sesshu was the most famous ink and wash painter of Japan. He's the sort of guy whose work you see in major western museums. The game was played in the majestic restaurant-cum-museum, the Saikotei, which was built in 1868. The whole game was a celebration not just of the past, but of human achievement.

And here, lately, on L19? Nothing but AI, rules and numbers. Humans are mentioned only in the connect of their Elo numbers. The majority of words devoted to networks, to chip sets and euros. Pah! Baubles and bawbees.

It is a truism in journalism that "there's nowt as interesting as other folk." So why are the interested here so few? I take some scant consolation in Shakespeare's superbly human phrase we all remember, when he describes the eve of Agincourt:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

And how can you know this if you don't speak japanese ? Care to give us a source of wisdom available to us mere mortal without the understanding of the language of the go gods?

There have been books in English, translated from Japanese or not, that are devoted to Go history and Go as a cultural activity. One of the problems is that people don't read what is available and books about Go don't sell well in general. On L19 there is little appreciation of books except when John Fairbairn posts something about a Japanese book he has recently found interesting. There are mentions on L19 of such things as mottoes, nicknames, and, occasionally, someone writes about visiting the Nihon Ki-in' historical collection on display, or the Shusaku museum. The motto "Hand talk" for Go gets little shrift any more, probably because people have forgotten that Go is a human activity. I like the style of the last Meijin game. It is as if the players snapped out of some sort of spell and returned to real life. I am not sure what importance to put on the venue for games. In a sense, hosting a match game is a kind of advertising, but some locations have historical connections. And recall that the venue for Shusai's retirement game played a big role in Kawabata's novel meijin (Master of Go).

Here is the game record.

Excellently put!

The reference to hand talk and spells reminds me of the 9th century poem by Sugawara Michizane, "On Watching Wang Du Play Go"

一死一生爭道頻
手談壓卻口談人
殷勤不愧相嘲弄
漫說當家有積薪

Wang Du was a visiting professor, in Japan to give Confucian lectures to the Emperor. Michizane was Japan's foremost scholar. They obviously got on well and could chaff each other. The game, he says, is less about hand talk (手談) then a war of words with pouting lips. Yet, here is a descendant of Wang the Woodcutter (積薪)! Wang Jixin of course features in one of Chinese go's most famous fantasy stories.

We could even combine everything and do hand talk in Harry Potter spells. The spell "accio" seems appropriate: 飞来！ (飞 being Chinese for a knight's move). Silencio 无声无息! has to be in the frame somewhere, of course, but if we need a bit of chaffing, how about the levitations spell 羽加迪姆 勒维奥萨！(wingardium leviosa): "you're getting a bit above yourself!" The full body paralysis curse 统统石化 is perhaps going too far, as turning uour opponent to stone may actually give him an advantage in go. I imagine that in practice most go talk would simply end with Expelliarmus 除你武器！(or if you win big maybe you can change chu ni wuqi to chu ni weiqi).

They didn't have go forums in those days. They wrote poems to each other instead. Dumbing down started a loooong time ago.

(You can tell I'm quasi-bored in quasi-lockdown )

Bad day for Shibano Toramaru. He lost 4th game of Meijin Final B+R 145 moves. Despite having white, he fall into bad position very early (all according to FA ofc). After some peaceful early moves, clash happend in upper right corner, and after few slips from each side, it was Iyama who got lead. Then Shibano tenuki was another slip, and after short fight, Iyama got 70% wr. Then it went worse for Shibano step by step and after move 74, Iyama had over 98% WR. From other point, it was solid game for Iyama - he had only few inaccuracies, and punished all questionable moves by Shibano. From that point Shibano to keep his most precious Mijin title, needs to win 3 in a row - not impossible, but if we assume both players are equally strong and colour of stones does not matter, then his chances are as low as 12,5%. As i said, not impossible!

Shibano Toramaru defeated Kyo Kagen 3-1 in the Oza 68 title match. I believe this is his first successful defense of a major title.

We'll have to see if he succeeds to defend Judan. Iyama Yuta seems in good form again and I expect him to be the Judan challenger.

Shibano had his first victory in the Chinese A league on Dec 13 in his game vs Tong Mengcheng(8p). For those interested, the game is at https://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/sgf/cn/22_al_1_15_1.sgf.

He is 1-2 in this league. The top performer of the Chinese A league is Park Junghwan (14-1).

Shibano's team did rather well, ending up in 4th and in the playoffs for the title.

A lot of fuss lately with the new Kisei, new stars, and so on. Poor Shibano, he is a bit forgotten

The Meijin league is at an interesting point. 9 players, so 8 games to play overall. Shibano is 4-1, and has already played, and beaten, Ichiriki (3-2). Shibano still has to play Kyo Kagen, also 3-2. Kyo and Ichiriki have to play each other, and Yo Seiki has beaten both of them. But has lost to other players.

There are several players with 2 defeats, and there could be a huge tie, but for now, Shibano is a solid candidate to challenge Iyama, again.

Today, Shibano won the 4th game of the Meijin. He is 3-1 against Iyama, close to getting the title again.

Again? Oh, wait... that word...

Two years ago, the Honinbo was also 1-3 for Shibano, and we know how it ended
But it won't happen again, right?

Right?

Sniffle, we who have followed Shibano sensei from when he was only a wee insei couldn't be prouder, sniffle.

6th game of the Meijin. Iyama is still alive.

The score is now 3-3, with a deciding game next week. Nigiri again.

Does this sound familiar? It sure does. I have even read a comment somewhere (twitter?)... according to it, not only the results are the same, but how the games progressed are similar too.

On one hand, I'd like another comeback. Fight against nature, epic,...

On the other hand, I'd feel bad for Shibano if he lost. Young players have little chance against punk Iyama.

Shibano Toramaru Meijin won two games at the Kuksu Mountains!