January 1995

The Jinro-SBS Cup remains a three-way contest right to the end. Korea's young lion Lee Changho, normally an indifferent performer away from his native Seoul, caught fire in Tokyo in mid-January and turned in four straight wins. Nie Weiping then saved China from elimination by taking the next two games. That leaves China, Japan, and Korea with one player apiece for the finale in Korea next month: Nie will face Cho Hunhyun, then the winner will play Rin Kaiho for the cup. Results of second round of six games, held January 10-16:

    Lee Changho (Korea)  beat  Cao Dayuan      (China)
    Lee Changho (Korea)  beat  Komatsu Hideki  (Japan)
    Lee Changho (Korea)  beat  Ma Xiaochun     (China)
    Lee Changho (Korea)  beat  Takemiya Masaki (Japan)
    Nie Weiping (China)  beat  Lee Changho     (Korea)
    Nie Weiping (China)  beat  Kato Masao      (Japan)

Rui Naiwei is women's world champion again, after besting Feng Yun by a 2-1 score in Seoul on January 22-24 to win the Bohae Cup. The tournament was a tough one for Rui: she nearly lost to Japan's Nishida Terumi in the first round, Feng wiped her out in the first game of the three-game play-off, and Rui had to fight back from a lost position to save the second game, but she lived up to her reputation in the end. Best Japanese performance was by Kato Tomoko, who beat Ye Jinjin to reach the semi-finals. This was the only loss by a Chinese player to a Japanese or Korean opponent. Although sponsorship of the championship has shifted from China to Korea, Chinese women still seem to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the field.

Pair go has gone professional in Japan, with sixteen mixed pairs competing in a knockout tournament sponsored by the Ricoh company. In the final game, held January 29, a Kansai Kiin pair, Hashimoto Shoji and Konishi Kazuko, defeated a Nihon Kiin pair, Ishida Yoshio and Nakazawa Ayako, to win the first Ricoh Cup.

Cho Chikun made a good start in defense of his Kisei title by beating Kobayashi Satoru in Atlanta, Georgia on January 18-19. He had the game pretty well wrapped up by the end of the first day. Kobayashi struggled for ninety more moves the next day, then resigned.

Sugiuchi Kazuko will need two straight wins if she is to keep her Women's Meijin title for a fifth year. She lost the first game of the match by resignation to her pupil, Kato Tomoko.

While Japanese professionals are being hard pressed in international competition, at the collegiate level Japan continues to rule the board. The University of Tokyo emerged victorious again at the Asian University Go Championship, beating China's Qinghua University 4-1 on January 5, and downing Korea's Hanyang University by the same score the next day. Qinghua edged out Hanyang 3-2 for second place. The match was held at the Arcadia Ichigaya in Tokyo.

Go is not the board game that's getting attention of the Japanese press these days: it's shogi, the Japanese variant of chess, where Habu Yoshiharu is challenging Tanigawa Koji for the Osho title. If Habu wins, he'll have all seven of the major professional shogi titles--and this whiz-kid is still only twenty-four. At the moment, Habu's winning is a big if, because Tanigawa has a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven match.