For your/our peace of mind, Iyama lost today against Kyo Kagen.

Now we can safely say that no more IchiYama for some time Perhaps in the next Honinbo, or not. But certainly not in the next Kisei match.

What!?!? Iyama lost!?!?

I guess I like Ichiriki Iyama games but I don't know how Iyama could lose to Hsu ChiaYuan . . .

What!?!? Iyama lost!?!?

I guess I like Ichiriki Iyama games but I don't know how Iyama could lose to Hsu ChiaYuan . . . How could he not make it second in the S League. I hope he's not having a slump. Or maybe Kyo Kagen played an inspired game, I'll have to check the game record and hope a stromg pro comments on it in English . . . MichAEl Redmond sensei.



Ah if I can't even spell his name I am not worthy as a follower of western pros in Asia. Alas!

Iyama chose a taisha variation nobody would ever, ever play...

Cheers,
Vesa

The game was short, only 137 moves, and a big group died.

Choosing an odd variation of a joseki is enough to lose like this? The opponent must have done something right.

You are making me very curious. The position when I gave up on watching it last night didn't look favorable for Kyo Kagen but I can see how there was a chance of it backfiring.

It's all coming together: we had John Fairbairn's announcement and release of his new book on Iwamoto Kaoru "The Survivors," then Iwamoto's travel to Europe came up on the AGA e-journal and here, then Michael Redmond was being discussed, and now Redmond has just released a game commentary on his special match with Iwamoto, which was mentioned in the beginning of "The Survivors." Iwamoto was already retired at this point and this was not a tournament game. However, it was a historic game in that Iwamoto was 90 years old at the time and the game used standard tournament rules.

In the video he mentioned a funny Japanese language quirk I recently learned. The word マンション ("manshon," like English "mansion") is used for condo buildings. I imagine that students who study abroad in Japan tell all their friends that they lived in a manshon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVsmOFdtGy4



By the way, I considered whether this story at all tied together with the prostate medicine discussion but... ahh, anyway...

Wow! Did you all see Ida's white Tengen?

I'm loving this variety!

https://youtu.be/uIbzzzAZ2r4

Update: very happy to have Ida in the title match. What a fun game. Very different from the sage old AI openings we've been seeing

Was this the first Tengen play in the opening in Japanese title history? Surely the first White Tengen on the second move. W2 Tengen is even rare in recorded games I'm looking through. Though I can imagine Tengen being played in the first 11 moves or so. Even though Ida lost it was definitely a novel title game. I doubt he will go for it again but if all the Tengen games have tengen I won't complain.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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$$ | . . 4 , 6 . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 9 . . . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . |
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . , . . . . . 5 . . . |
$$ | . . 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Ida said he intended to play tengen irrespective of the colour he got. He didn't say why, but observer Hane Yasumasa, who will know Ida well from the Nagoya branch of the NK, said he got the impression that Ida just wanted to enjoy himself. I suspect what that really means is Ida wanted to put on a thank-you show for his fans, because the game was played in Ise City, which is in Mie Prefecture, and Ida is from Mie Pref.

However, he did admit that Black 55 and 57 rather exposed the folly of his tengen, and Seki clearly felt a bit chuffed with those moves because he wondered what AI would make of them. Seki (who had not expected tengen) also said there were no moves he regretted, even though the game turned into an endgame battle.

Although Ida lost, and the IA avaluation never put white ahead, it was 60-40 at some point.

So, beginning with Tengen maybe was not the best idea (result wise), but white had, at the very least, a fighting chance. And that's what fans want.

We're getting so many new matchups. But I haven't had as much time for Go. What a bummer because this is what I've been looking forward to. Happy to see more of Yo Seiki. And Shibano is doing well. Ida too! This is great!

Seems no-one here is following the 47th Meijin here, but Iyama has pulled back to 3-3.

However, there was an incident which may have had some significance. On move 31 in Game 6, Shibano (Black) had a nose-bleed and put on a mask. Normally the etiquette is that a player about to move should not leave his seat, but in this case he asked to be excused and Iyama told him to go ahead. Shibano returned to his room, waited till the bleeding stopped, changed his mask and returned. It was a quick return but his clock was still running. This was the bare-bones account of scorekeeper Moro Arisa, and there was no indication of the cause of the nose-bleed, or whether it had happened before, or what impact it may have had on Shibano. I'd find it hard to believe it had zero impact, and it was a critical phase of the game.

It's going off at tangent, but nose-bleeds seem common in go, yet I don't recall of reading about them in chess, and my chess encyclopaedia has no mention of noses. Could they be connected with long periods of kneeling?

At a more mundane level, aficionados may wish to look at White 34 (a probe) which elicited the admiration of referee Kobayashi Koichi, who called it simply "a pro move."

They are playing the entire games wearing masks these days, it is probably not obvious for anyone that hasn't watched them. The situation with the bleeding nose was developing for awhile, with Shibano taking the mask off repeatedly to wipe his nose until some blood can be seen. There was instant reply of it in the youtube stream. If you are interested you can watch where the replay starts. It is not that interesting to actually watch Shibano's nose bleed but it is also the link to the live stream. As you can see it is just over an hour into the game, but Shibano also had to arrive early to clean the equipment.

Something funny was only part of the live stream and that was the "Ichiriki meter" that accompanied the live commentary.

I usually don't watch more than a few minutes of such live streams, preferring to follow on Pandanet if I'm awake / have time, it is after all often close to 20 hours in total. The stream also has the AI evaluation bar and I always prefer to think on my own before checking anything like that (I make exception for the Ichiriki meter because it's funny). The second day of these matches sometimes runs long into the morning and past noon for European time zones. It is often more fun to catch the end than it is to watch the beginning. Btw someone did mention the bleeding nose when it happened.

I'll stick my neck out and offer the correction that Shibano was white in this game, as seen on youtube.

I made some comments in the Shibano thread, here's a link:

https://www.lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?p=275450#p275450

There is also an Iyama thread, and this general scene one. Sometimes, it's a bit hard to decide where to post.

In this case, it's not only about one of the big titles.

It's about a big big déjà vu.

If Shibano gets aways with only a nosebleed, then lucky him. His head might explode next week.

My mistake about colours. I saw a photo where shibano had a mass of black stones in front of him and assumed they were his. It was perhaps the post mortem instead.

Last game of the Meijin.

Today (already played), first day. Iyama got black in the nigiri. Two years ago, in the Honinbo, he got white. Does it matter...?

He has been ahead most of the game, and regardless what AI says, I like black better. I think his position is solid, and also reduced white's left, a potential big territory.

Shibano sealed the move after being pincered. The outcome, very soon.

Ah, and the Ichi Meter must have liked in the Kiin, because today Cho U and Shinji Suzuki are using another meter. This one includes a kiai meter too

Kiai metre? Wow I must see that then.

The second day saw various meters, including the Uni meter and the Cho U meter. The commentators were also in a very good mood, especially Cho U. Iyama did his thing and never added a move to the only group that could possibly be attacked, despite being ahead in territory, finally the attack came and Iyama played the strangest move for 137 and proceeded to die his group. Therefore we have a new-old meijin in Shibano.

Glad that Shibano won at last But what are these "meters"? I thought they were just graphic display of winrate.