March 1995

Kobayashi Satoru has risen out of nowhere straight to the top by taking the Kisei title from Cho Chikun. Well, not quite nowhere--his 34-7 won-lost record last year was a sign that something was in the offing--but his previous title wins could be counted on the fingers of one hand, without using the thumb, and most of them had been in minor tournaments restricted to young, non-top-ranked players. So it was more than a mild surprise when, after tying the Kisei match at 2-2, he went on to take games five and six, both by resignation. He won by keeping cool, staying close, matching Cho's depth of reading, and waiting for Cho to auto-destruct. Cho mismanaged his time and lost several of the games on mistakes in byo-yomi. "I still can't believe it", Kobayashi stated afterward. "The correct handicap between Cho and me is probably for me to take black in every game, and I'm not just saying that to be modest".

In between the fifth and sixth Kisei games, the same Kobayashi captured the NHK Cup as well. His opponent in the final game was Kiyonari Tetsuya, a player from the Kansai Kiin. As in most of the Kisei games, it was a come-from-behind win for Satoru-san, by 4 1/2 points.

Between those last two Kisei games, Cho also lost the NEC Cup to a player named Kobayashi, but it was his old rival Kobayashi Koichi. This was their first encounter in almost a year. Cho borrowed a couple of K.K.'s favorite moves in the opening, but to no avail. The Meijin and ex-Kisei Kobayashi pulled ahead in the middle game and won by resignation, earning his first NEC Cup.

Cho then beat Kobayashi Koichi in the semi-final round of the Kakusei tournament, however, so two days after losing the Kisei title, he found himself playing Kato Masao for the Kakusei title. Recent pictures of Cho at the end of crucial games have sometimes shown him burying his head in his hands, and this turned out to be one of those games. Capitalizing on a late middle-game mistake by Cho, Kato won by resignation, gaining the third Kakusei title of his career.

On March 25 Cho played in the final game of a still another tournament, a new one sponsored by Japan's national tobacco company (JT). The initial rounds of this tournament are organized by signs of the zodiac, and Cho, whose birthday is June 20, won his way up from the Gemini bracket. His final opponent was a Scorpio, O Rissei. This was the same match-up as in the final of the ACOM Cup last year, and the result was also the same: O Rissei is the first winner of the JT Cup.

So Cho has the unique distinction of having played for four titles in one month and lost all four. That might be enough to send some players into shock, but on March 30 Cho put the month behind him with a half-point victory over Rin Kaiho, in the Meijin league. Cho now leads that league with a 3-0 score, while Rin and Takemiya trail at 3-1.

As Cho moved to the top of the Meijin league, Kato Masao dropped from the top of the Honinbo league into a tie with two young players, Yo Kagen and Yuki Satoshi. In the final Honinbo-league round next month, Kato will tackle Yo while Yuki plays Komatsu Hideki.

Nakano Hironari, a 25-year-old 8-dan from the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Kiin, won the NEC Rising Stars lighting tournament on March 4, beating Morita Michihiro in the final game. Truly a rising star, Nakano has two first places in Oteai competition, and now has the first title win of his career.

Enda Hideki, a 28-year-old 7-dan from the Osaka branch of the Nihon Kiin, won the New Stars lighting tournament sponsored by Tokyo TV. Enda upset Ryu Shikun, Tengen, in the final game.

Yoda Norimoto appears to be on the verge of taking the Judan title from Otake Hideo. Otake, who has been in a deep slump ever since defending this title last year, was decisively beaten in the first two games of the best-of-five match.

Results of the semi-final round of the Tongyang Securities Cup, played March 20-24 in Seoul:

     Nie Weiping (China) beat Yamashiro Hiroshi (Japan) 2-1
     Ma Xiaochun (China) beat Cho Hunhyun (Korea) 2-1

World amateur champion Hiraoka Satoshi is also Japan's Student Meijin, after defeating the Student Honinbo 2-1. This ends Hiraoka's student career; next month he's off to work for Japan Freight Railway. In his time, Hiraoka has also been Middle-School meijin and national high-school champion.

World women's amateur champion Sato Akiko is Japan's women's amateur champion for the fifth time, including the last three years running. She beat Baba Tomoyumi by half a point in the deciding game.

In professional shogi, Tanigawa Koji defended his Osho title by overcoming Habu Yoshiharu in the seventh game of the match on March 23-24. Two games were actually played. The first ended at 2:30 in the afternoon of the second day in a stalemate, by repetition of the same position four times. Under tournament rules the players took an hour's rest, then switched sides and started over, using their remaining time plus enough extra to give each player at least two hours. Habu resigned at 9:18, six moves short of being put in checkmate. Tanigawa's victory stopped Habu from getting all of the major shogi titles, so Habu will have to be content with being Meijin, Kisei, Oi, Oza, Kio, and Ryuo, as well as a TV star of sorts (he appears in commercials). This setback notwithstanding, Habu seems to be Japan's answer to Lee Changho and Garry Kasparov. The unfortunate difference is that the game he excels at is not widely played outside Japan.

If shogi, why not sumo wrestling? Hawaiian-born grand champion Akebono pushed over native-born grand champion Takanohana to win the March tourney with a 14-1 score. This is Akebono's first championship since a year ago, and signals a complete recovery from knee surgery. It stopped a three-tournament winning streak by Takanohana.