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Kisei game 5 ended with Cho’s 3.5 points victory.

One of the most interesting parts of the game was the sacrifice that Cho (playing Black) made on the right side instead of living by playing in 3×3 (see the sequence shown in the next 2 diagrams): as a result, he got thickness into the center that translated later, among other advantages, into a quite large territory on the lower side.

The score is now 3-2 for Yamashita.

Next game is on March 12th.

Game 5 of the Kisei title started today: Cho (Black) played the last move of day one (49, in the upper-right corner) before Yamashita sealed his next move.
While Cho cannot afford to lose any other game, Yamashita has a comfortable 3-1 lead so he only needs to win one of the next 3 games (including this one) in order to win this match and keep the title.

Black seems to have more territory, but he also has several groups on the right hand side to worry about. The game will continue tomorrow.

The next Kisei Title game between Yamashita Keigo and Cho Chikun will be today. Yamashita leads Cho 3-1, which means that one more win will assure Yamashita of keeping his title again this year.

Will Cho be able to make a recovery from this uncomfortable score?

The Nihon Ki-in website published a table with the history of best-of-seven titles where one of the players recovered from 1-3 (or even from 0-3) to win the title.

Out of 10 such cases, Cho recovered 3 times from 0-3 to win the title: against Fujisawa Shuko in Kisei, 1983, against Otake Hideo in Meijin, 1984, and against Kobayashi Koichi in Honinbo, 1992. Cho also came back once from 1-3 to win the Honinbo title in 1990, also against Kobayashi Koichi.

Cho was also on the the other side of “miraculous comebacks” once: he led 3-0 against Rin Kaiho in Honinbo 1983 before losing the title 3-4.

So Cho Sensei is the master of comebacks. He is renowned for doing his best under pressure. I’m sure we’ll see an exciting game later today!

Yamashita Keigo leads Cho Chikun 3-1 in the Kisei Title match.

Yamashita won game 4 in which Cho seemed to have had a comfortable position for the first 160 moves or so.

White’s slack play a little bit earlier allowed Black to play a beautiful double purpose move with 165 (the circle marked Black stone in the lower right) which threatens White’s positions on both lower and right sides. In the game Cho defended his right hand side group and Yamashita laid wasted on White’s lower side territory. The diagram shows what happens if White defends the lower side instead: his right side group dies.

Kisei game 4 started today, it will conclude tomorrow.

This is an important game: at 2-1 for Yamashita, one more win will bring him just one step away from defending his title against Cho.

Here is the situation so far (click on the board image to download the game record). It is amazing how quickly the position turned into a non-standard variation in the lower-left corner.

On a related note, Cho Hye Yeon 7p of Korea was wondering what did Cho Chikun think about during day one of game 3 (when only 25 moves were played). Read her wonderful “Only a matter of TIME” article - it is very interesting and informative with respect to (decreasing) time limits in professional tournaments.

Takao Shinji (on the right hand side in the photo) defeated Cho U in the playoff for becoming Judan challenger. (link to the game)

Cho Chikun is Judan title holder, and the first game will be played on March 6th.

Cho Chikun forced the Kisei title owner, Yamashita Keigo, to resign in game 2. The score is now 1-1.

You can find the game record on the tournament page.

Kisei title, game 2: day one is over:

The action so far was all in the upper-right corner, where they played some variation of the very complex Magic Sword of Muramasa Joseki.

Cho Chikun plays White and sealed the last move of this first day.

The real fight will start tomorrow (and end tomorrow, as well).

Yamashita started his defense of the Kisei title well, by winning the first game (by resignation).

It may look like an upset win since Yamashita made a large dent in Cho’s territory while they seemed to start yose, but by following the Cyberoro pro comments (just the variations, since I cannot read the actual comments) I think Yamashita was ahead anyway and Cho tried to over-stretch in the yose stage by not defending properly against White 118, which led to the more spectacular ending.

Yamashita looks happy during the post-mortem game analysis with the main referee, Kobayashi Koichi, who was himself Kisei in the late 80’s - early 90’s for a record of 8 consecutive years (of which, interestingly, he both captured the title from Cho, then lost the title to Cho as well).

The first day of the 2008 Kisei Title match is over. I started a webpage dedicated to this event.

The first game of the Kisei title, as always, was played abroad. This time in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Here are some videos from the opening ceremony, from where we learn that the 2 contestants are also skilled in Brazilian dances: