December 1994

The 9th China-Japan Supergo series is over and China has a new pair of heroes: Liu Xiaoguang, who dispatched the first three members of the six-man Japanese team, and Cao Dayuan, who dispatched the last three. Victory for the Chinese came on Christmas eve in Tokyo, when Cao defeated Kato Masao by 2 1/2 points. China has now won five out of nine Supergos.

"Too many careless mistakes," said Kobayashi Koichi in summing up the 7th annual Mingren-Meijin match, held in Tokyo in mid-December. After dropping the first game and winning the second, he lost the third and deciding game on an uncharacteristic blunder. "I once felt that Kobayashi and I were on different levels," said the victorious Chinese Mingren Ma Xiaochun, summing up the past six years of this match. "I'm glad that I can now give him some real competition."

Japan is off to a flying start in the Jinro-SBS cup, due to four wins by Miyazawa Goro. Under a new individual prize system, those four wins were also worth $15,000. Known as the most aggressive pro player in Japan, Miyazawa nearly downed his fifth opponent too, which would have doubled the prize, but he became over-aggressive in a winning position. Here are the results of the first six games, which were played December 6 to 12 in Shanghai:

     Liu Jing      (China)  beat  Yoo Changhyuk (Korea)
     Miyazawa Goro (Japan)  beat  Liu Jing      (China)
     Miyazawa Goro (Japan)  beat  Seo Bongsoo   (Korea)
     Miyazawa Goro (Japan)  beat  Zheng Hong    (China)
     Miyazawa Goro (Japan)  beat  Yang Jaeho    (Korea)
     Cao Dayuan    (China)  beat  Miyazawa Goro (Japan)

Cho Chikun marked Pearl Harbor Day on December 8 by taking the Oza title from Kato Masao. It wasn't an easy win: Kato led for most of the first hundred moves, but he dropped his guard twice in the late middle game and Cho took advantage of both mistakes. In retrospect, the deciding game of the five-game series was the first, in which Kato overlooked a tesuji and Cho killed nearly half his stones at the 55th move. With the Kisei, Honinbo, and Oza titles now in his possession, Cho has definitely regained the top spot in Japanese go.

Also on December 8, Ryu Shikun celebrated his twenty-third birthday by beating Rin Kaiho by resignation to win the Tengen title. Born in Seoul, Korea, Ryu came to Japan in 1986 to study under Oeda Yusuke, made shodan in 1988, and reached 6 dan earlier this year. His victory over Rin came as a surprise to many people, perhaps including Ryu himself. Showing that he has mastered Japanese etiquette as well as go, he said, "I'm not sure I'm qualified to hold a title this high. I'll have to study harder and become stronger."

The Kisei title challenger-deciding game between the two Kobayashi's, Koichi and Satoru, was won by Kobayashi Satoru on December 1. Koichi did not seem to be playing with his usual determination. After devastating losses in the 1990-1992 Honinbo and 1994 Kisei matches, he may not have had the heart to face Cho Chikun again. Kobayashi Satoru will start playing Cho on January 18 in the United States, at the Hotel Nikko in Atlanta. It should be a good match: over the past decade these two have met six times and have won and lost in turn.

Victory in the Kirin Cup went to the Tohoku team of seven (three pros, four amateurs). The team included current world amateur champion Hiraoka Satoshi and three-time former champion Imamura Fumiaki, whose victories were instrumental in the final 4-3 triumph over the Tokyo B team. Individual honors were won by Hiraoka and three other unbeaten players, who will be enjoying free beer for the coming year.

Kato Tomoko, former Women's Honinbo, will try to become Women's Meijin next year. This title match also starts on January 18.