February 1994

After losing the first Kisei title game by letting Kobayashi Koichi carry out one of his typically powerful attacks, Cho Chikun changed his tactics completely: he played for thickness and didn't make any more weak groups. This new strategy worked like a charm in games two, three, and four, all of which Cho won. In game five, however, Kobayashi found some chinks in Cho's armor, struck aggressively, and kept a struggling Cho pinned down securely enough to earn a 3 1/2 point victory. After five games, the series stands 3-2 in Cho's favor, with the sixth game scheduled for March 9-10.

Before that sixth game, Kobayashi will start playing Otake Hideo for the Judan title. He beat Rin Kaiho to win the challenger's spot.

Sugiuchi Kazuko rolled on to victory again in the Women's Meijin. Ogawa Tomoko put up a tough fight, capturing the second game, but Sugiuchi outfought her in the decisive third game, nearly killing her largest group and turning another group into a seki. Sugiuchi now has four straight Women's Meijin titles, matching the four women's championships she won from 1953 to 1956.

The Jinro-SBS Cup wound up in Seoul February 22-23, and ended in another victory for the Korean team. Japan's only remaining player, Takemiya Masaki, played outstandingly against Cho Hunhyun and won by 3 1/2 points, but turned in a less impressive performance against Cho's teen-age pupil Lee Changho, who beat him by 9 1/2. The final team won-lost records were: Korea 7-4, Japan 7-5, China 0-5.

Yasunaga Hajime, one of the grand old men of Japanese go, died on February 2 at the age of 92. A prolific go writer and theorist, he made substantial contributions to the development of modern opening theory, from the shin-fuseki of the 1930s to the Chinese opening of the present day. The Chinese opening was actually developed by a group of amateur players, including Yasunaga, in Tokyo. Yasunaga introduced it to China when he visited that country in 1963, and the rest is history. In 1980, when seventy-eight years old, Yasunaga took third place in the 2nd World Amateur Go Championship.