1001 GoGoD Games for your Coffee Break #32 (18 Feb 2013)
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:10 pm
I mentioned Oyama Toshiko in an earlier post, and said I would post a game by her. This is a Go Seigen game, so it has mass appeal straightaway for that reason alone. But it stood out for me for various other reasons.
One was that Go was contracted to provide a commentary for it (given here), for Igo Club, which was normally aimed at players at the weaker end of the spectrum (compared to Kido), yet he does not find a move before Black 148 worthy of a comment! Black's performance is certainly feisty, and the game does seem to flow rather well up to that point, perhaps as a result of being played slowly. The whole game occupied almost seven hours.
At this point (1937) Oyama Toshiko was not yet a pro - that would not happen until 1941 - but she was clearly a pre-pro, since she had been a pupil of Kita Fumiko since 1931 (she was sixteen at the time of the game).
Do you share my suspicion, based on Go's final comments, that he was hoping to engineer a win by 1 point, only to see that idea overturned by Black's late mistakes? Kita Fumiko was essentially his second mother in Japan and so he would probably want to show his gratitude via this teaching game by being kind to the pupil.
One was that Go was contracted to provide a commentary for it (given here), for Igo Club, which was normally aimed at players at the weaker end of the spectrum (compared to Kido), yet he does not find a move before Black 148 worthy of a comment! Black's performance is certainly feisty, and the game does seem to flow rather well up to that point, perhaps as a result of being played slowly. The whole game occupied almost seven hours.
At this point (1937) Oyama Toshiko was not yet a pro - that would not happen until 1941 - but she was clearly a pre-pro, since she had been a pupil of Kita Fumiko since 1931 (she was sixteen at the time of the game).
Do you share my suspicion, based on Go's final comments, that he was hoping to engineer a win by 1 point, only to see that idea overturned by Black's late mistakes? Kita Fumiko was essentially his second mother in Japan and so he would probably want to show his gratitude via this teaching game by being kind to the pupil.