February 1995

The Korean team has racked up another victory in the Jinro-SBS Cup. Their anchor-man Cho Hunhyun got past China's Nie Weiping by 8 1/2 points on February 21, and defeated Japan's Rin Kaiho by resignation the next day. Both games started well for Cho's opponents, but Cho showed that he can come through under pressure. The final won- lost records: Korea 6-4, Japan 4-5, China 4-5. Cries of "Stop Korea!" are starting to be seen in the Japanese go press.

"I feel I've repaid a debt of gratitude," said Kato Tomoko after winning the Women's Meijin title match on February 1. She was referring to the debt owed by pupil to teacher, and she repaid it by demonstrating that she had been well taught, by defeating her teacher Sugiuchi Kazuko in two straight games. Master-disciple matches are rare in Japanese go, and a lot was riding on this one: had Sugiuchi won, she would have had five straight Women's Meijin titles, making her Honorary Women's Meijin for life. Her undoing was a reading error that allowed a large group Kato's stones to survive an attack in the second game.

The Kisei games are two-day affairs, so Cho Chikun's resignation on February 1, the first day of the second game, caused quite a stir. Cho had overlooked a move in some early fighting. He won the third game, with some difficulty, but then lost the fourth by 3 1/2 points, after misreading a ladder twice. That ties the match at two wins apiece. If Cho does not settle down, Kobayashi Satoru could be Kisei by mid-March.

The second ACOM cup began on February 6, with attention focused on the twelve amateur contestants. Hirata Hironori defeated 2-dan and 3-dan pros before losing to another 3-dan pro in the third round, and four other amateurs, including women's amateur champion Sato Akiko, won their first-round games. Hirata, incidentally, will represent Japan in the upcoming world amateur championship.

Yoda Norimoto will start playing Otake for the Judan title in March. He earned the Judan challenger's berth by beating Morita Michihiro on February 9, two days before his twenty-ninth birthday.

In shogi, after Habu tied the Osho match at two-all, Tanigawa swept back to a convincing win in game five on February 27-28. "Can't tell where I went wrong until I check it out later," said Habu. In making this check Habu, an intensive computer-user, will be able to access the Kisen data base maintained by the Japan Shogi Federation, which contains records of some twenty thousand professional games from the past twenty years. Habu's play has been criticized as being computer-dependent. His retort: "I think that from now on, using a PC to organize data will become as natural as using a telephone or fax."