November 1995

The king has taken the throne by storm. Using only half his allotted five hours per game, O Rissei (King) Rissei won the Oza (Throne) match in three straight games. Defender Cho Chikun lost each game through a critical oversight made under time pressure. Cho resigned the second game (November 1) a few moves after O resurrected what Cho had thought was a dead group, and resigned the third game (November 16) immediately after misreading a ko. After playing in Japan for two dozen years, O Rissei (born Wang Licheng in Taiwan) has his first major title. Interviewed by Go Weekly, O commented that, "I used to want to win very badly, but I've changed in the past two or three years. Now I'm playing more for enjoyment, without worrying about winning or losing. And since last March, I've been taking lessons twice a month from Go Seigen, which have helped very much."

Elsewhere, Cho Chikun beat Kato Masao in two straight games to become Kisei challenger. Cho's rematch against Kobayashi Satoru starts January 17-18 in Amsterdam.

The fourth game of the women's Honinbo match was played in a teahouse secreted in the Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Building in Osaka on November 8, and was won by Yoshida Mika. Having defeated her shodan challenger Chinen Kaori by a 3-1 score, Yoshida is women's Honinbo for a third straight year. She has also earned another form of recognition. Close observers of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit spotted her as the kimono-clad model on the APEC poster.

Among professionals based in Nagoya, Yamashiro Hiroshi is top dog again. He defended his Okan title on November 16 by defeating Hane Yasumasa.

In addition to weathering a social storm caused by his abrupt cancellation of a much-publicized marriage engagement, Ryu Shikun is being hard pressed in the best-of-five Tengen title match. After three games, he is down 1-2 to Kobayashi Koichi.

One of the annual events in Japanese go is the amateur- professional Honinbo game, this year between Nakazono Seizo and Cho Chikun. The playing conditions are adjusted every year. Due to a string of victories by Cho, the amateurs had been pushed to a moderately embarrassing three-stone handicap (minus 2 1/2 points komi). At Nakazono's request and with Cho's approval, the game was played with unrestricted placement of the handicap stones. Nakazono chose the unusual pattern shown below. After a dozen moves the opening had settled back into something more conventional, but still not your ordinary three-stone game. Nakazono redeemed amateur honor by winning a solid 10 1/2-point victory.

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . .10 . . . .
      . . . + . . 5 . . + @ . . . . + @ . .
      . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . .12 + . . . . . + . . . . . + 3 . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . 6 + . @ . . .11 . . . . . 2 . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . .
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  @: handicap stones
      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1: white

In international competition, the second Korean-sponsored Bohae Cup started at mid-month to determine the world's strongest woman professional. All four Japanese contestants won their first-round games, and in the second round, Okada Yumiko and Aoki Kikuyo routed two Chinese powerhouses: last year's champion Rui Naiwei and former Fujitsu quarterfinalist Hua Xueming. In the third round, however, Okada and Aoki bowed to Korea's amazing shodan Lee Youngsin and last year's Bohae runner-up Feng Yun. That leaves Lee to play Feng later for the cup. Full results so far:

     Round 1 
	Lee Youngsin (Korea)       beat  Chen Huifang (China)
	Sakakibara Fumiko (Japan)  beat  Hyun Mijin (Korea)
	Rui Naiwei (China)         beat  Yoon Youngsun (Korea)
	Okada Yumiko (Japan)       beat  Kan Ying (Hong Kong)
	Hua Xueming (China)        beat  Lee Chihyun (Korea)
	Aoki Kikuyo (Japan)        beat  Kang Sunhui (Korea)
	Feng Yun (China)           beat  Hwang Yum (Korea)
	Miyazaki Shimako (Japan)   beat  Janice Kim (U.S.A.)
     Round 2 
	Lee Youngsin (Korea)       beat  Sakakibara Fumiko (Japan)
	Okada Yumiko (Japan)       beat  Rui Naiwei (China)
	Aoki Kikuyo (Japan)        beat  Hua Xueming (China)
	Feng Yun (China)           beat  Miyazaki Shimako (Japan)
     Round 3 
	Lee Youngsin (Korea)       beat  Okada Yumiko (Japan)
	Feng Yun (China)           beat  Aoki Kikuyo (Japan)

Meanwhile, Japan's player of the year, Kobayashi Satoru, was in Shanghai for the Jing'an Gentlemen's Cup. This was a four-man contest in which the other participants were Ma Xiaochun and Chang Hao (China) and Seo Bongsoo (Korea). The Chinese proved generous hosts: Kobayashi won against Chang, while Seo beat reigning world champion Ma. In the deciding game Seo also beat Kobayashi to take the cup.

Kobayashi Satoru and Ma Xiaochun then went on to Korea to play each other in the quarterfinal round of the Tongyang Securities Cup. Ma was apparently now feeling less generous. The results were:

     Ma Xiaochun (China)  beat  Kobayashi Satoru (Japan)
     Cho Hunhyun (Korea)  beat  Kataoka Satoshi (Japan)
     Cho Chikun (Korea)   beat  Nie Weiping (China)
     Lee Changho (Korea)  beat  Liu Xiaoguang (China)

In international amateur action, youngsters from Korea and Chinese Taipei starred at the sixth pair-go championship, held at the Hotel Edmont in Tokyo on November 11-12. After defeating two of the strongest Japanese pairs, Kwun Hyojin and Lee Kyongbo (Korea) nosed out Chang Kaisim and Lin Chih-han (Taipei) by half a point in the championship game. Kwun, Chang, and Lin are all under sixteen. Americans Lee Anne Bowie and James Chien finished a very respectable seventh (out of thirty-two pairs, half of them Japanese). Katarzyna Koenig and Leszek Soldan (Poland) were adjudged one of the best- dressed pairs, an award that was greeted with whistles of approval. The handicap tournament was thronged as usual, as was a demonstration of pair go on the Internet.

In computer go, Chen Zhixing's Handtalk was the unbeaten winner at the Ing-sponsored championship held in Seoul, November 4-5. Michael Reiss's Go 4++ came second, followed by Ken Chen's Go Intellect and David Fotland's Many Faces of Go.