Yet another sidelight on go among women in Japan.

There have been quite a few J-pop stars who say (or who their publicists say) they are go fans. That's the light infantry. Now we have women in the heavy cavalry. The Sakamoto Sisters, Aya and Risa, have been studying music in Rostock University and recently won 3rd prize as a piano duo in the prestigious German ARD music competition (but also won the audience's first prize). They are in their mid 20's, and have been pro for over 22 years!. But they have revealed that over all that time since toddlerhood they have also been keen go fans.

Their revelations came in an interview between them and Shibano and Onishi Ryuhei. Aya disclosed that she used to keep music scores under her pillow, and would sing duets with Risa. Toramaru said he kept a tsumego book there, and Ryuhei kept game records.

The Sakamoto sisters were born in Japan but are half Filipina. Risa, I think, had a brief career as a J-pop star (as Sakamoto Rin) but apparently didn't like the pressure of that world.

Looks like a pair-go match made in heaven?! They did play one but it was left unfinished!

Interesting parallel with chess in the USA. Two rap stars RZA and GZA, original members of Wu Tang Clan, are well known chess fans who have done work to promote chess with young Afro-americans.

Different tournaments begin in different moment of the year. We know this. So at a given moment, the progress is different for each one. Is it about to finish? They are playing the last prelims? Difficult to keep track. So, because of things that make me stay at home, I am going to see how are things with the Army. Let's see:

- Kisei. The title match for the #46 Kisei has started, but the #47 prelims has already started. Fujisawa Rina kept her seat in the C league, but Sumire and Xie Yimin lost theirs. They will skip one game in the prelims, but that's it. So Rina will aim to go to one of the B leagues, or keep her seat.
- Meijin. The #47 league is on going. Xie Yimin was 1 game short of qualifying. She will play again in the last prelim of the #48 Meijin. In the first prelims, Ueno Asami and Suzuki Ayumi are seeded in the B prelim, so they have to win only 1 game before the next prelim. Kobayashi Izumi and Kibe Natsuki are 2 games away. Sumire has won her first game.
- Honinbo. #77 league going on too. Suzuki Ayumi lost in the semifinal of the last prelim. I think she will play in the A prelim (#78). The C and B prelims are being played. Xie Yimin has already qualified, the Ueno sisters are both one game away (big result for Risa)... some wins and some loses.
- Oza. Rina played the last prelim (#70). She lost to Onishi Kenya 4dan. The #71 term has not started yet.
- Tengen. Rina has qualified for the main event, and Kato Chie 2 dan is going to play Mutsuura Yuta 7 dan for another seat. It would be great to add a new name to the big events.
- Gosei. The main tournament (#47) has just started. Nyu Eiko lost to Norimoto Yoda 9 dan. The prelims for #48 haven't started yet.
- Judan. Rina and Asami played the main tournament, and Rina played in the quarterfinal. Best 8, a big milestone.

This is it for the big seven. Can we see a female in the big leagues this year? Let's hope. That day is not too far.

In other tournaments:
- Shinjin O. The main event has just started, with 8 names in red. Ueno Asami played the last final. A path may have opened.
- Kiriyama. Rina played the last tournament, and lost in the first round... to Iyama. You can't say she went easily.
- NHK. Four females have played in the current term, and already lost. You can guess their names.

Others, like Wakakoi, Teikei... are shorter (in the sense that they don't take a whole year).

And then there are the female only tournaments.
- Honinbo. Rina won again, but the challenger was new (Hoshiai Shiho).
- Meijin. The prelims for the league have finished. Who will challenge Rina? Who will lose their seats? The answer of both questions won't be Sumire (believe & hope).
- Kisei. The title match is going to begin soon, between Ueno Asami and Suzuki Ayumi. The winner, in a few weeks.

And more or less, that's the situation right now. What I'd really like for this year is to bring more and more names to the thread.

Some news in these last few days.

First, the female Kisei title match started. Ueno Asami won the first game (it's a best of 3). Again, against Suzuki Ayumi. What's with this tournament and these 2 players? They have played the last 3 terms. Too bad they didn't broadcast it in youtube, because they played in a church. There was a live comment in the space of the building, the game was (I guess) in a smaller and quieter room.

Fujisawa Rina beat Rin Xien 8-dan (his Japanized name, he is from Taiwan) in the final game of the B prelim of the Honinbo. She will play the A tournament. Xie Yimin will be in it too, and some other players still have chances.

In the Kisei, Ueno Risa 1-dan lost to Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan. A bit too much to chew, perhaps. Also in the Kisei, Mimura Kaori 3-dan lost to Fujui Masaaki 9-dan. Cho Chien lost to Kurita Keiki (amateur, I am not sure about the name). Tanimiya Ayako 3-dan lost to Okada Shin'ichiro 9-dan. Yoshihara Yukari 6-dan lost to Sugimoto Akira 8-dan. Makihata Taeko 4-dan lost to Suzuki Yoshimichi 7-dan. Kato Chie 2-dan lost to Sonoda Yuuichi 9-dan. Big slaughter.

I might have missed some interesting result, but after so much blood... I am going to stop here.

It's not really a church. It's called the Grand Victoria Shonan Chapel and is a wedding hall attached to the Sun Life Garden Hotel in Hiratsuka. The bridal atmosphere makes it considered suitable for a women's event, presumably, but Hiratsuka was the original home of the Kitani School, and it has a huge open-air go festival every year.

The reason it looks like a church is that Sun Life bought the Perceton and Dreghorn Free Church in Irvine. Irvine is near Kilmarnock just north of Ayr, in Scotland, and so is Rabbie Burns territory, but the most famous person from Dreghorn was John Dunlop, who invented pneumatic tyres. The church ended up with no congregation but was a listed building, so Sun Life was able to buy it and transport it, stone by stone, to Hiratsuka. It was reassembled there, along with the original organ and, I think, the pews. (Here comes the bride, 40 inches wide... we used to sing outside churches, waiting for the hoy oot). When the reconstruction was finished in 2000, the Womens' Kisei was chosen to handsel it and the final has become a fixture there ever since.

A reminder to get your wee drams ready - it's Burns Night on the 25th, and we all known how much Burns loved the lassies. His first book "Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" was published in Kilmarnock. It contains a possibly apposite poem for the Grand Victoria Chapel, in my view: "To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church."

This may even be my personal favourite, but it's hilarious and widely loved, and the most famous portion is:



One of the best bits of the Burns Supper is the Toast to the Lassies. Fans of the Amazon Army could perhaps contribute sic a wee toast here on L19 (next Tuesday).



This is Rin Shien. If you want to Sinify it, it is Lin Ziyuan.

I misunderstood something here. Let's see. Rina really lost to Onishi. But they were playing in the Preliminary tournament A. This is not the last prelim, because after A, there is the Last tournament.
What I missed, and it's important, is that Moro Arisa 2-dan beat Cho Zuiketsu 5 dan and will have a chance to play in the last tournament. Suzuki Ayumi 7 dan, Okuda Aya 4 dan and Mukai Chiaki 6 dan are also playing the A prelim, but they are 2 games away from getting in the last one.

And the #71 term has not started, of course, because the #70 term is still in early stages.

A new broadcast in Youtube has just been announced:

Tsuji Hana 2 dan vs. Mori Chisaki 1 dan in the prelims of the female Honinbo. Next 31st, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-aR9gGbwQ

This is not a top title game, not a game between great rivals or any thing like that. It's a game between young players who need to struggle for every win they can, and usually get very little attention. That's why it's nice that, from time to time, a game like this is broadcasted. There is no commentator yet, but let's hope it will be properly commented when the time comes.

edit: Su Yaoguo 9-dan will comment the game

Some updates a bit late. All games were played in Jan 27th:

- Ueno Asami will be female Kisei for another year, after beating Suzuki Ayami again. The match ended 2-0, Ayami must be mad to have lost again. According to gotoeveryone, the record between them is 6-4 for Ueno (before the title match, I think). go4go says it's 8-4, so it must be right.
- Fujisawa Rina beat Cho Chikun in the first round of the Tengen. She already won a game in the Judan, let's see if this is not news soon.
- The female Meijin league has started. Mukai Chiaki beat Nyu Eiko. It's important to notice that last year, Nyu beat Mukai and kept her seat (3-3) while Mukai was demoted (2-4). So this could be an important result, because I think it's clear which players will be fighting for the title, and which will be fighting for surviving.
- Bonus: today Jo Bunen played her new first dan game against Fujisawa Rina. The new player lost (as are losing most of them). BTW, back in the day Fujisawa played this game against Cho Chikun. Surely carrying that surname was (is) a heavy weight. BTW2, the game was played in a common room.

There may be a new Amazon soon. I didn't know this before but Cho U has 2 daughters. Kosumi became pro in 2020 at age 13 and now her sister 心治 (Koharu?) has achieved top rank (6-1) in the female recruitment test at age 12. I believe that she will officially become a professional in a few months. Must be very exciting for their family.

https://twitter.com/asahi_igo/status/14 ... 1084722176

Koharu will be able to start playing as a pro in April.

She (like Kosumi) is the fourth successive generation of go pro. But neither is the first such. Let's not forget Fujisawa Rina is too! Though, it must be said, the Cho sisters do have rather more pros on their Who Do You Think You Are genealogy chart.

But there are very many two and three generations of pros. Even when children do not become pro they may be very strong (e.g. Rin Kaiho's daughters as top amateurs). It's prevalent in go but doesn't seem to happen in chess, so I've often wondered whether it's because go is a trade that can be passed on (i.e. it's nurture; it's especially marked in Japan local professionals running go schools must also be included in the mix), or whether it's because of genetics. Or both? Anybody have a reliable view? (Remember that in some cases in Japan it includes adoptees.)

Rare enough in chess I can think of only one exception. There was a time period when the Polgar family, parents plus the three daughters would have constituted a darned strong "family chess team" << youngest daughter Judit was of course the strongest >>

Curious, do any of the grandchildren play serious chess?

Wikipedia tells me about Jorden van Foreest (rating 2702):
"His younger brother Lucas (born 2001) earned the title of grandmaster in 2018. His sister Machteld (born 2007) won the Dutch Girls' U10 Championship at the age of 6 and shared second place in the Dutch Girls' U20 Championship when she was 9. In 2017, she became the first girl ever to win the Dutch U12 Championship."

Whatever activity it is, the parents probably start their kids young. Though I'm guessing there is a careful balance between sharing and pushing.

https://twitter.com/cho_kobayashi/statu ... 0933753859
I bought the same 4x4 apple tree set (yon ro no go) but my son is not interested in actually playing Go yet. Maybe in a few years.

By the way, I got the "adult" 4x4 Go set and played through the book that comes with the set and it was fun. There is a separate book with harder problems which I haven't started yet. 4x4 is interesting because it's all corners.

Every army marches on its stomach. But what does the Amazon army feed on?

Not red meat, but red fruit, it seems.

At least new pro Jo Bunen reveals she learnt to relax before big games by eating 60 strawberries. That's about 300 calories, so no worse than an ice cream - probably much better if you think of vitamins.

I think strawberries were one of the things introduced to Japan from the west in Meiji times, and they have thrived. Always popular, they even have their special day in Japan - 15th January. 1-5 is ichi-go, and the Japanese for strawberry is ichigo. And by a fluke Jo's birthday is 15th January. She did not say there is a connection - that's my guess. After all, strawberries and strawberry picking (ichigogari) are widely popular with Japanese women. Japanese residents in London even exchange information about the best spots to go strawberry picking here (we make our strawberries with real straw, of course!). My local supermarket sells Japanese food, and the big favourite is strawberry and cream mochi.

But I didn't really latch on to the strawberries as food. I'm a raspberry man anyway for red fruit, and prefer bilberries and gooseberries most of all), and have to say that one of the worst meals I ever had was the famous strawberries and cream at Wimbledon - daylight robbery, too. What caught my attention was rather that Jo was playing Fujisawa Rina in the Go Weekly series for new 1-dans. She did rather well for most of the game, playing cosmic go with an AI tinge. At move 125 she was deemed to be ahead (with no komi). On move 200 she resigned, yet there was no sudden mistakes. The explanation given was simply that Rina is a mistress of the endgame. What that translated to in mind was that Rina had won by strawberry picking. That struck me as a lovely way to describe the endgame.

Incidentally, Jo had to try the pro qualification exam three times before she got through, nut her teacher Mitsunaga Junzo said one of her big assets is a rosy view of life. Clearly rose-coloured fruit helps in that regard.

There is a new member of the Army. Yasuda Akika 1-dan played her New Shodan game against Xie Yimin 7-dan..., and lost. Not a surprise. So far, this year only Namiki Hibiki won, beating Sakai Maki 9-dan. I don't know him either.

The female Meijin league is going on. Nyu Eiko 4-dan beat Suzuki Ayumi 7-dan. I can't say this is really a surprise. Nyu has been playing well and improving, and she is now taking another step. Becoming the challenger might be too much, but she might be one of the key players. Ayumi, on the other hand, is already 0-2. More loses than last year.

Sumire 2-dan played her first game in the league against Omori Ran 1-dan. It is interesting to notice that they played each in their first pro game. That time, Omori won. Things are different now, with Sumire having reached 2-dan before.

Mukai Chiaki 6-dan is 1-0 (won against Nyu). But the news with her is that with 6-1 (86%) she has one of the best records this year. As of today, she is tied with Kyo Kagen Judan only after Yu Zhengqi 8-dan (or Yo Seiki), at 7-2 (78%) is the player with most wins. There are a few players with 100% wins, but with less won games. But, a few days ago, Mukai was #1

But this is all nothing.

The really big news, at least to me, is that Sugiuchi Kazuko 8-dan beat Kikuchi Masatochi 2-dan is the second round of the first prelim of the Kisei.

Sugiuchi is 95 and still active. She played 11 games last year, and this is her second game this year, and first win. She was married to Sugiuchi Masao 9-dan, who died in 2017, at 97 years old. I *think* I read somewhere that Masao played in the game with the largest difference in age against somebody around 30 years old. The young won. Masatochi is now 30, and Sugiuchi Kazuko, 65 years older, won. What a great feat, and what a joy she must have felt.

Could this be a new record? Could she improve her own record? Could she play one of the new players and set an unbreakable record??

Edit: I found the right info in Sensei's. I made a mistake, and I thought I'd better not hide it.
Sugiuchi Masao played Onishi Ryuhei 1-dan, in 2016. Age difference: 80. Sugiuchi lost. But in 2015, Sugiuchi beat Sotoyanagi 1-dan and 15 yo at the time. 70 years older and kicking ass. Beating her husband's records might not be impossible for Sugiuchi Kazuko,... given the right pairings.

Not exactly "Amazon army" but the Japan Pair Go Association final match is coming up in 32 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjp5iZxuasE

Nyu Eiko is in it. I follow her a bit and so this is exciting. She got into a tournament league recently... Oh! bummer. It was the Oza and she lost her game a few weeks ago. I missed that one.

Against Nyu is Chinen Kaori, who I don't hear much about lately but she had some Women's titles back when.

Nyu is paired with Iyama and Chinen is paired with Ichiriki. Let's see how the pairs switch it up.

It was the Gosei. No woman has qualified for the Oza main tournament yet.

The latest Go Weekly features a long round-table discussion by three female stars of the Japanese go scene.

Historically, such round-table discussions, usually reported verbatim, as here, have tended to signal intense activity behind the scenes. That's just the way the Japanese do business. Before they make a major initiative, they like to sound out opinions - in the case of go, of both players and fans. There's no guarantee of any action, of course, and the way the women's go world is developing at present could be said to argue for a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. Still, given the financial pressures elsewhere, I'd be rather surprised if the executives are not planning some new way of capitalising on the success of the distaff side.

The three participants spanned three generations: Koyama Terumi (52), Kobayashi Izumi (44) and Hoshiai Shiho (24).

All three expressed surprise as well as pleasure at the way women have made their presence felt recently. Of course, they cited the headline events such as Fujisawa Rina winning the Young Carp in 2020 and Ueno Asami challenging Ichiriki Ryo for the Ryusei in 2019. Koyama said her family of three (all pro go players) were transfixed at home watching the latter game. She didn't mention it, but that game featured a double-headed dragon fight. Rather in the way that unicorns were supposed to herald the appearance of great sages like Confucius, maybe DHDs will herald the appearance of great female champions! But the panel was also careful to stress the simpler but wider impact of female names appearing more and more in the higher echelons of the preliminaries tables.

Asked what the underlying reasons for the advance in women's go were, the panel identified three broad factors. Hoshiai (laughing) said first that AI had had an impact because it changed the view of senior players as gods, with everyone below them meekly believing the gods knew everything. It was very frustrating that she didn't elaborate on that, but even so, just saying it is quite significant in Japanese terms. The other two ladies didn't comment on that, but my guess is that it's simply because they are pre-AI players, rather than from a sense of caution.

The older panellists were rather more voluble on the second factor: the increasingly younger age of strong players, which they said is more significant for females. Kobayashi pointed out that she was 17 when she turned pro and had her first child when she was 28. That gave her a career of just 11 years. She contrasted Rina, who turned pro at 12. If she followed the same path to domesticity in her late 20s, she would have a career and learning span 50% longer. Sumire would be closer to double.

As to why kids were learning younger, they all cited opportunities. Kobayashi said that when she learned go, 8 or 9 out of 10 girls said they learned from their parents. But the hikago (Hikaru no Go) age changed that. Classes sprang up everywhere, at both ends of the spectrum. More children played at home but this was backed up by more local community classes. At the other end were elite schools like the Ryokusei Academy and the school of Hong Malk-eun Saem. Hoshiai said she was a hikago child and went to the latter two schools, but was also able to go to the Shinjuku Children's Go Classes. In addition, there were many Go Festivals that attracted children. These, in particular, have been badly hit by the corona pandemic, she said, so there is some trepidation as to the ultimate effect.

Under the same heading of opportunity, they all approved of the go world's policy of allowing females to join in events with men. The shogi world has experimented with mean and women operating on parallel tracks. The go model was considered a big advantage.

They pointed out that the rest of the go world is likewise getting stronger at a younger age, of course (but not in the west, I ask?).

One thing they did not address, except in Kobayashi's remark about learning from parents or relatives being the usual path in the past, is Family. She is part of four generations of pro go players (and one of the latest, Cho Kosumi, seems to have spawned a name for a new shape: the Kosumi kosumi!). Koyama is not too different. She belongs to three generations of pros (her son Koyama Kuya is a recent pro, her husband is a pro, and grandfather was a pro). But that's not just the past. Sumire has two parents and an aunt who enjoy go as a profession. Rina also has four generation of pro go (plus an offshoot in Fujisawa Hosai). Ueno Asami may not have the lineage but she shares a gene pool with pro sister Risa (and let's not forget the three Mukai sisters).

Clearly, AI, an earlier start and more opportunities will all feature in the development of future female stars. But will family genetics also play a part for those who get to the very top?

You're right, it was the Gosei! Thank you. She was also making her way through the Oza qualifiers but not the challenger league.

I found this reading quite appealing to me (your post, not the original article).

I found several topics that I have commented here, such as top pros being gods before AI, and humans now; how family is a factor for girls to play go; or how the progress of female pros is not only measured by how a few of them play bigger games, but by how more and more advance in early rounds of the prelims. This may sound egocentric, but I like to see that my point of view is not far from reality.

The generational gap is obvious in their comments. And Kobayashi's opinion is specially valuable.