March 1991

NEC Rising Stars (March 9): This tournament came down to a battle between two 8-dan brothers from Taiwan: O Meien vs. Tei Meikou. Early in the game O invaded Tei's main territory and managed to turn most of it into a seki, but Tei fought back to a winning position. Unfortunately he tried to add an unnecessary point to his margin of victory by contesting a final ko. Then he ignored a valid ko threat, lost a vital liberty by connecting the ko, and watched in horror as the seki crumbled and 21 of his own stones died. (And we thought professionals never did that sort of thing!) So after 316 moves O, the older brother, won by resignation.

NEC Cup (March 9): In the final of the main NEC tournament Kato Masao battered Otake Hideo unmercifully into submission, leaving the board littered with his opponent's dead groups. This victory ended Kato's brief titleless spell.

NHK Cup (March 17): Scoring his first unrestricted tournament triumph at age 25, Yoda Norimoto, 8-dan, has become Japan's national TV network champion. Yoda toppled four 9-dans, O Rissei, Tono Hiroaki, Cho Chikun, and Ishida Yoshio, then beat O Meien in the final game.

Kisei Tournament: Kobayashi Koichi has won it again. Kato Masao tied the match 3-3 by some clever defensive play in the sixth game. In the seventh game, played March 19-20, Kato built monstrous territories at both the top and bottom of the board and seemed to be on his way to victory, but Kobayashi caught up in the late middle game and forged ahead in the endgame, ultimately winning by 4 1/2 points. Kobayashi has won the Kisei title six years in a row, tying Fujisawa Shuko's record.

Super: Still smarting from last year's one-sided loss, Japan put three of its best young players, Yoda Norimoto, Ogata Masaki, and Komatsu Hideki, into the sixth China-Japan Supergo series, but the Chinese steamroller is proving hard to stop. In the first two games, played March 22 and 24 in Beijing, Komatsu and Ogata both lost to Zheng Hong. The full line-ups are:

          CHINA                         JAPAN
     Nie Weiping 9-dan             Kato Masao 9-dan
     Qian Yuping 9-dan             Hane Yasumasa 9-dan
     Yu Bin 8-dan                  Kobayashi Satoru 9-dan
     Chen Linxin 8-dan             Awaji Shuzo 9-dan
     Zhang Wendong 7-dan           Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan
     Liang Weitang 7-dan           Yoda Norimoto 8-dan
     Liao Guiyong 7-dan            Ogata Masaki 7-dan
     Zheng Hong 6-dan              Komatsu Hideki 7-dan

Hirose Cup: In what may be a preview of world championships to come, Yoda Norimoto and Lee Changho, Korea's 15-year-old prodigy, squared off in a five-game match. Yoda and Lee split the first two games, played in February in Seoul. After a break the match resumed March 26 in Tokyo. Yoda now won two straight to take the prize, which was put up by a leading Japanese manufacturer of electrical connectors.

Judan tournament: After two games Takemiya Masaki and Cho Chikun are tied 1-1.