Yes, typo edited in original.

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

Congratulations to everyones favourite child geniuos! I am totally amazed that she beat Ueno Asami in a best-of-three speed match! おとめでて! Wow, she's improving faster than I expected or realise. She may be the real deal.

I saw the news around the Internet when it happened but I have not had a chance to review the games, only just now reading the news. What an exciting time, huh? It was only a matter of time. Though I'm still happy about Nyu Eiko getting her win and magazine cover those months ago as I'm sure Nakamura Sumire will have her face everywhere for quite a while. Well deserved and very impressive. And hopefully her fame continues to bring in waves of new players.

I just noticed that Ueno Asami has been winning a lot lately. Her rating is now higher than Rina Fujisawa's. And if you look at Ueno's games since Dec 1st 2022, Ueno has played 10 games and is 8-2. Her only losses were to Sumire.

Sumire turned 14 3 days ago.

As a birthday present, she played in the World Senko Cup. After a first round with an amateur 6dan (no disrespect here, but easy win), Sumire play Choi Jeon 9-dan. As expected too, Sumire lost.

Choi won the tournament, and what I find interesting, is that the game she found more remarkable was the one with Sumire. Choi said that Sumire is stronger than herself at 14 years old. I'd like to know, who can claim to be stronger at 14 than Sumire? Not many people could.

The 19th Asian Games will be held in September in Hangzhou, China. The Japanese have already held competitions to choose their final representatives. Sada Atsushi beat Ida Atsushi to grab the last men's spot behind pre-selected Iyama, Shibano, Ichiriki and Seki. But the ladies are the ones who interest us here. Ueno Risa, looking more and more like big sis Asami as the puppy fat disappears, came out on top in the distaff competition after beating Nyu Eiko. She will thus join seeds Rina and Asami. I have no idea why Sumire is not the the mix.

Risa's victory against Eiko was marked by what was called an ear-reddening type move (48, marked below) which is very similar to the kind of move xela highlighted 0in a separate just-started thread about a Takemiya game.



This move was noted as providing succour to the White group above (i.e. same principle as a Chinese zhao ying call & response move) while expanding the moyo below. But, best of all, it seized the initiative for White (主導権を握った). See, you can have the initiative without having sente!

That amatuer is actually the current two-time consecutive Women's Amateur Go Championships. Sumire just made it Look easy because she's a boss.



That's because Nakamura Sumire sensei sensei had all but won the game when she made an unexpected brilliant attack on Choi Jeong's group on the upper side. Talent hits a target no one else can hit, Genius hits a target no one else can see. It would have been the biggest win in Nakamura Sumire's career so far, more than winning the Female Kisei, but then Nakamura blundered it away . . . Choi Jeong is as strong as Hsu Chiayuan and Yu Zengqi so this is a big deal as it implies if Sumire learns to win a won game properly she could compete in the major Japanese Leagues.

Her current rating on goratings is 3148. Goratings tries to estimate historical strength for players, so out of curiosity I looked up how it rates other notable players at (roughly) the same age:

Choi Jeong (turned 14 in 2010): 3185
Yu Zhiying (2011): 3208
Fujisawa Rina (2012): 3031

And why not, let's include some top men too:

Ichiriki Ryo (2011): 3273
Ke Jie (2011): 3428
Shin Jinseo (2014): 3432

So Sumire compares very well to today's top women at the same age, but she's a bit behind today's overall top players. I'm not trying to make any predictions here, just thought it was a fun comparison.

btw- due to the way the goratings algorithm estimates historical strength, I suspect it may be somewhat underrating Sumire's *current* level relative to these other players *historical* level. We'll see!

According to goratings Xie Yimin currently ranks higher than Ryan Li, which seems a bit odd. Even stranger is that it claims her peak rating was at the beginning of 2008—when she was 18, and at 3124 it's lower than Nakamura Sumire's today。 So it's possible that even in a whole-history rating system inflation is occurring, well I've known it's been occurring early on from the rank graphs of former top players。I hate inflation although now I think about that still doesn't explain why her peak was at 18

It seems so strange seeing little Nakamura Sumire先生 at the extravagant Women's Kisei ceremony! I'm more used to seeing Fujisawa Rina there。

After 4 years of pro career, the Igo ShogiPlus channel has released with Sumire's highlights.

Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-VMAdzME1A

It's very nice, shows her growth, feats...

But:
not even a second for her wins against men or in the open tournaments. Even making it to the kisei C league is not important? Her NK profile doesn't mention it as important either.

Sumire won her game againt Cho Chien 2p in the first round of the 8th Senko Cup.

I'm not sure what the goal of the sequence starting with 59 was, but it seems to have led to black's defeat in the end.

https://kifudepot.net/kifucontents.php? ... i5sQ%3D%3D

JK posted a video about this game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-bEUPOkM4

According to the IA avaluation he uses, his variations, and his voice, it seems that it was really a critical moment of the game, because white took a ko, and ignored a threat that black didn't play right.

Thanks, pajaro! I didn't know about this channel.

The kosumi in the lower left corner ( ), instead of the nobi seemed funny but I didn't realise it was so bad for black.

He's popular around here, but nobody seems to know who he is.

If you ever find out, don't forget to share!

Sumire won her game against Aliyama Jiro 9p in the 62nd Judan. It seems it was a close game until white decided to commit suicide in the center around move 144.

https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98283

Sumire played a new game in Fox and JK made a video. Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s1aZGPwEGQ

Sumire won, great, hooray, etc, etc. Not important

What catched my eye is the title of the video:

仲邑三段、中国女子甲級リーグに向け視界良好！

that google translates as:

Nakamura 3rd Dan, good visibility for the Chinese Women's Grade A League!

Does this mean that Sumire is playing in a Chinese league? Or will play?
I remember that she already played in a Chinese league, perhaps 1 year ago. Nyu Eiko played in it too. Am I right? Does anybody know about it?

It seems so. Tygem has a room open for a game to be played on the 14th between Sumire and Li Sixuan 2p in the first round of the "[China] Womens' Kapjo league".

The team she played for in the B league was promoted to the A league!

edit: livestream!

Tough game for Sumire, it seems.

Moves that caught my eye:
- the splitting move is not that common nowadays, is it?
- it doesn't feel like b got a lot from these moves. It seems to me they kind of allowed w to take the initiative, settling the M14 group quickly while shutting b in the corner (which is still wide open)
- nice
- 106 I'd probably chicken out and play a nobi. I think that's roughly the same idea as the upper left corner in the Tamura-Ueno game I posted about.