The Nihon Ki-in has announced that from 1 January 2021, new rules will apply at all its branches for pro games in order to prevent cheating by use of AI.
From then, players will no longer be able to leave the premises during games, even for lunch and dinner breaks. There will also be restrictions on the use of toilets and the routes to the designated toilets. A communal rest area will be made available.
These rules do not yet apply to the Kansai Ki-in, which does not have enough room to apply them while social distancing is in force.
New Nihon Ki-in rules
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Re: New Nihon Ki-in rules
Is this purely preventative, with a glance across the pond to Korea/China, or have there been any AI suspected cheating cases in professional Japanese Go yet? I recall some big hoo-hah in shogi where a top player was suspended over cheating suspicions but iirc no hard evidence was found and the process ended up attracting criticism.
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Re: New Nihon Ki-in rules
I am not aware of any incidents or rumours of cheating in the Japanese go pro world.
The shogi case was in 2016 and centred on Miura Hiroyuki. He was suspected of cheating based on the fact that he left his seat more often than usual. As I recall there was some hysteria in the air because of a manga that featured a cheating episode, but in any event there was no substance found in the accusation. As a result, the President of the Shogi Renmei - the great Tanigawa Koji no less - and several board members resigned, and some others were voted off the board by angry players. Miura received compensation for prize-money losses and damages for a tarnished reputation. He went on to win the Kisei later, so clearly did not need computer help to win titles.
I don't know whether he did leave his seat too often, or where he went. But I do know the Shogi Renmei scene can be pretty relaxed. I've been in the game room chatting with players while games have gone on, and there are places to relax more officially. There's even a pleasant small plaza outside. I never saw any evidence that suggested that players had to live a monk-like life with strict adherence to silence. Maybe that culture has changed - or had to change - since I was a regular there. I stayed in the bedrooms there and of an evening would get out one of the posh boards and play with my friend in the tatami-ed rooms.
On one occasion I was part of the team that took the world's first shogi computer to Japan. It was the first to beat a pro, though on 4 pieces. I think the pro let the machine win though, so that we could get good publicity in the papers. Which we did. Even better, and a big eye-opener for me as a western journalist, was that we interviewees were also paid handsomely for our interviews.
Apart from good friends at the Renmei, the thing I liked most there was the toilets. The toilet paper there was a brand called Chess (the English word). I think both the go and shogi worlds should hunt around for another brand called AI, which they can use to express the feelings of very many of us about what AI has done to their worlds.
The shogi case was in 2016 and centred on Miura Hiroyuki. He was suspected of cheating based on the fact that he left his seat more often than usual. As I recall there was some hysteria in the air because of a manga that featured a cheating episode, but in any event there was no substance found in the accusation. As a result, the President of the Shogi Renmei - the great Tanigawa Koji no less - and several board members resigned, and some others were voted off the board by angry players. Miura received compensation for prize-money losses and damages for a tarnished reputation. He went on to win the Kisei later, so clearly did not need computer help to win titles.
I don't know whether he did leave his seat too often, or where he went. But I do know the Shogi Renmei scene can be pretty relaxed. I've been in the game room chatting with players while games have gone on, and there are places to relax more officially. There's even a pleasant small plaza outside. I never saw any evidence that suggested that players had to live a monk-like life with strict adherence to silence. Maybe that culture has changed - or had to change - since I was a regular there. I stayed in the bedrooms there and of an evening would get out one of the posh boards and play with my friend in the tatami-ed rooms.
On one occasion I was part of the team that took the world's first shogi computer to Japan. It was the first to beat a pro, though on 4 pieces. I think the pro let the machine win though, so that we could get good publicity in the papers. Which we did. Even better, and a big eye-opener for me as a western journalist, was that we interviewees were also paid handsomely for our interviews.
Apart from good friends at the Renmei, the thing I liked most there was the toilets. The toilet paper there was a brand called Chess (the English word). I think both the go and shogi worlds should hunt around for another brand called AI, which they can use to express the feelings of very many of us about what AI has done to their worlds.