Takao Shinji won the Judan title match 3-0 against veteran Cho Chikun. Takao is also holding the Honinbo title.
Cho must have been exhausted after his attempt to capture the Kisei title from Yamashita Keigo (where he was barely defeated with a 4-3 score) - which ended on March 20th. With this defeat Cho lost his last major title this year.
Game 7 was played on March 19 and 20, 2008. This was the last game of the series: the Kisei title is a “best of seven” match, and the score before this was 3-3.
Yamashita won by resignation and kept the Kisei title.
The game became most violent in the second half, when Cho tried (unsuccessfully) to turn the tables after Yamashita took territorial advantage around move 136.
The first day of game 7 of the Kisei title has ended. This is the last game of the series because the Kisei title follows a “best of seven” system, and the score so far is 3-3.
The following diagram shows the position at the end of day 1. The last move was Yamashita’s (White) 44. Cho will likely play the sealed move as a jump to the left of his stones in the center, putting pressure on the White group in the center-left.
The rest of the game tomorrow will decide who will hold the top Japanese Go title this year.
Cho Chikun won game 6 of Kisei by 4.5 points and evened the score to 3-3 (after being led 3-1 earlier).
Yamashita’s early attack in the upper right during day 1 and the resulted thickness in the center didn’t pay off in the end, though: Cho’s territory prevailed so the Kisei title is going all the way to the 7th game!
The following diagram shows what happened after Yamashita’s attack in the upper-right ended: Black took profit on the left side (although the captured White stones still have aji), but White also became very strong in the lower-left. Also, White’s kikashi with 72 is put to good use later, when White cuts with 94.
Yamashita leads 3 to 2 after the first 5 games: one more win and he can keep the Kisei title one more year, while Cho needs 2 consecutive wins to capture the title.
After day 1 in game 6 I like Yamashita’s (Black) position more: after the first 47 moves or so White had to invade Black’s deep moyo and felt under attack, so Black built a lot of thickness in the center. And the attack is not over yet.
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.
My name is Sorin Gherman. I studied Go as an insei in Japan, and I built 361points.com to share my Go experience with you.
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