Sugiuchi Watch

[Shenoute]

Sugiuchi Kazuko won a game this month against Yokota Hinano (born 2003). A mere 76-year gap!

https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98199

[John Fairbairn]

Mrs Sugiuchi is the subject of this week's Tsuru-Rin column in Go Weekly. This column takes famous standard four-characters phrases and highlights a pro in connection with these.

The phrase pinned on Mrs Sugiuchi was 松柏之寿 (Shohaku no ju). It's really a Chinese phrase and alludes to a poem by Bai Juyi of the Tang dynasty. It's often used on lucky charms or inscribed on bracelets or lockets because it expresses long life (寿 - which happens to come in her given name: 寿子), as exemplified by the two trees pine and cypress, both evergreens. Mrs Sugiuchi is 96 and still playing, which of course Tsuru and Rin point up, perhaps a little ungraciously as the pine imagery is often linked with skin wrinkled like the bark of Japanese pine. (Nor is the other tree the kind you can romantically tie a yellow ribbon round.)

They also pick up on the fact that her own name contains a tree: 杉 or cryptomeria. But it was her husband's name really.

The chatty duo rather missed a trick, I thought, because they skipped the allusion to Bai Juyi. He is a well known and popular poet even in Japan, and he should be popular with all go players because he wrote several poems with go as a theme. His most famous work is Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which does not relate directly to go, but it's about the love affair of the go-mad Xuanzong Emperor and his consort Yang Guifei. It was this fair lady who may have invented a piece of advice we all use. She had a pet monkey which she fondled as she watched the emperor play. If she detected from His Majesty's frown that he was losing, she would let the monkey loose onto the board, scattering all the stones. Hence the proverb: the monkey jump is worth 361 points.

It's also worth noting the Chinese allusion because the 柏 in the saying is a faux ami. It is not the Japanese 柏 (Quercus dentata - an oak) but the Chinese 柏 (Platycladus orientalis, a cypress conifer). Japanese makes the distinction outside poetry by referring to their oak as kashiwa and the Chinese tree as kogashiwa or kotegashiwa).

Bai Juyi does not use the three binome in quite the same format as the saying, or in a go connection. It comes in his 效陶潜体 suite of 16 poems (Poems in imitation of the style of the very famous pre-Tang Daoist poet Tao Qian = Tao Yuanming).

The relevant part of Poem 1 in the suite is:

不动者厚地，不息者高天。
无穷者日月，长在者山川。
松柏与龟鹤，其寿皆千年。
嗟嗟群物中，而人独不然。

The solid earth does not move. The high heavens never rest.
The sun and moon traverse endlessly, The mountains and rivers are everlasting.
Pines, cypresses, tortoises and cranes all live long - a thousand years.
But, alas, for Man alone, amidst all these things, the same is not so.

You can see where everlasting regret comes into the picture!

Note: But no regrets here! This post has been made to promote the bright cultural side of go, as opposed to the dark AI side. No tortoises or cranes - or humans - were harmed in the making of it.

[John Fairbairn]

A bit more for the tree huggers among us (King Charles III even?).

By chance, I was writing something on Engelbert Kaempfer this morning, and I recalled that he was the first westerner to record the tree Ginkgo biloba (the maidenhair tree). Dutchman Kaempfer stayed in Japan for two years, 1690 ~ 1692, and his interest in flora japonica was mainly as a physician. He had no recorded connection with go, but gingko is used for decent-quality traditional go boards in Japan. Kaempfer brought back some ginkgo seeds which were planted in a botanical garden in Utrecht. The resulting trees have been said to have survived to the 21st century. Does anyone know about them? At the very least it's another example of trees long outliving Man.

Ginkgo itself is an interesting word. Kamepfer appears to have taken the least usual Japanese reading of 銀杏, that is 'ginkyo' (it is normally 'icho', but when referring to the gingko nut 'ginnan' is also used). It is assumed he wrote that as ginkjo, with j being used for y as in several European languages. But some of his works were first published in London, and as g can sometimes be pronounced as j (as in judgment), it was perhaps changed by an editor. The consequences are just as long living!

[CDavis7M]

The chatty duo rather missed a trick, I thought, because they skipped the allusion to Bai Juyi. He is a well known and popular poet even in Japan, and he should be popular with all go players because he wrote several poems with go as a theme. His most famous work is Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which does not relate directly to go, but it's about the love affair of the go-mad Xuanzong Emperor and his consort Yang Guifei. It was this fair lady who may have invented a piece of advice we all use. She had a pet monkey which she fondled as she watched the emperor play. If she detected from His Majesty's frown that he was losing, she would let the monkey loose onto the board, scattering all the stones. Hence the proverb: the monkey jump is worth 361 points.

This is the funniest post I've read on this message board

[Shenoute]

Mrs Sugiuchi lost a game on the 15th against Takeuchi Kosuke in the 62nd Judan.

She invaded deeply at 89 but couldn't live with her group.

https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98307

[Ferran]

Kaempfer brought back some ginkgo seeds which were planted in a botanical garden in Utrecht. The resulting trees have been said to have survived to the 21st century. Does anyone know about them? At the very least it's another example of trees long outliving Man.

Maybe one of these?

I'm lucky enough to have a single piece gingko table goban, and I am pretty satisfied with it.

Take care.

[pajaro]

Coming next:
Sugiuchi Kazuko 8 dan vs. Yanagihara Saki 1 dan in the B prelim of the female Meijin. Next 13th. Broadcasted in Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWEgtZD12yE

Age difference is 83 years, 7 month. Yanagihara is that girl who wanted to be a world champion in few years.

[Elom0]

Coming next:
Sugiuchi Kazuko 8 dan vs. Yanagihara Saki 1 dan in the B prelim of the female Meijin. Next 13th. Broadcasted in Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWEgtZD12yE

Age difference is 83 years, 7 month. Yanagihara is that girl who wanted to be a world champion in few years.

A must-see.

[Elom0]

Coming next:
Sugiuchi Kazuko 8 dan vs. Yanagihara Saki 1 dan in the B prelim of the female Meijin. Next 13th. Broadcasted in Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWEgtZD12yE

Age difference is 83 years, 7 month. Yanagihara is that girl who wanted to be a world champion in few years.

A must-see.

Suguichi sensei is yet to show up for her game

[pajaro]

The game wasn't played, due to health reasons.

Yet, officially the game is played, and it counts as a record. Although, to me, that's a bit odd.

[Elom0]

The game wasn't played, due to health reasons.

Yet, officially the game is played, and it counts as a record. Although, to me, that's a bit odd.

Meditating in front of the board counts as playing?

[pajaro]

Meditating in front of the board counts as playing?

As a random amateur player,not to me. But, looking at it from a serious point of view, I think that they are professional players. It's their living. Yanahigara showed up, and it wouldn't have been fair to her if they said "oh, let's forget about this".

So, yes, she deserves the win. And if the game "was played", then strictly speaking, the record was broken too.

Even so... odd...

[jlt]

Amateurs may also win tournament games by forfeit.

[Elom0]

Let's hope she's okay . . . Hope for the best but brace ourselves in case it's the end of an era.. . .

[pajaro]

Amateurs may also win tournament games by forfeit.

Yes, they may.

But I was thinking about a game in a bar or a club.