Subject: THE BIG GAME 8 Question From: John Fairbairn <JF@harrowgo.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 23:06:13 +0100
The answer to Question 7 gave Black 51. K4, White 52. H3. We proceed as below.
a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s t
19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
18 . . . . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
17 . . . # . @ # . . # @ @ @ # . . @ . . 17
16 . . . . . . @ # # . @ # . # . @ . . . 16
15 . . # # # . @ @ @ @ @ # . . # # @ . . 15
14 . . @ @ @ . . . . . # . . 3 6 . . . . 14
13 . . . . . . @ @ # # . # . . 4 @ . . . 13
12 . . . . . . . # @ . . . . 8 5 7 . . . 12
11 . . . @ . # . # . . . . . 9 . . . . . 11
10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @ . . . 10
9 . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4 . . . # . . . . . @ . 0 . . . . @ . . 4
3 . . . . . . . # . . . . . . @ . . . . 3
2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
a b c d e f g h j k l m n o p q r s t
The subsequent moves were:
Black 53. O14
The commentary said the idea was to settle part of the right
side so as to remove aji there. This move is not so much a
forcing move as an inducing move, because it expects not O15
but...
White 54. P13
Black 55. P12
White 56. P14
Black 57. Q12
White 58. O12
White would like to defend at O13 but that would be gote and he
would fall too far behind in development.
Black 59. O11
White 60. M4
The question now is to find Black 61. It is not specially hard (certainly no long sequences), and seeing the move my reaction was "Of course". But truth to tell I don't think I would have played it myself, and I think that few amateurs, unprompted, could match the convincing clarity and above all the _simplicity_ of thought the pro showed in explaining his choice. See now, with that prompt, whether you can match in some way his single short sentence. It's not a proverb this time (at least not a standard one).
The stronger players should also try to predict the next couple of moves after that.
Everybody loves Shusaku. Here's the latest news on him (not in Invincible).
24 new games were discovered in Nagano City in 1993 by Nakata Keizo when, ironically, he was researching the travels there of Honinbo Shuho. He heard that Shuho stayed in the house of a distinguished land-owning family whose 13th generation head was then Sumita Akio.
He had a copy of an Edo period book, Toryu Gokyo Taizen by Akiyama Senboku, which he thought was the only valuable go item he had, and he showed it to Nakata. Only later did he fetch out of an apple box in his storeroom 4 handwritten books one of which was a record of a league played by pros in 1866.
The Sumita collection turned out to have over 200 games, around 30 being new games of the Honinbo family ( Jowa, Shuwa, Shusaku and Shuho). The Shusaku games were in a small booklet about 10 cm square which contained 64 games. Black's moves were written in black ink and White's in red ink. 16 were unknown, and some of the rest had different dates from previous editions.
Another six were discovered in the Shiraki collection of Yonekubo Sadao of Sajiki in Ahiojiri City. He held what had been passed down by a late Edo player from the same area, Shiraki Sukeemon (1806-1885) who had written the book Kika Keifu recording go history of over 100 players from Honinbo Retsugen on to late Edo. The collection included a huge haul of Shiraki's own games and letters, and games by others, ranking lists and a unique copy of Honinbo Sansa's diploma - plus lot of new info on the Honinbo family, especialy Shuwa, through the letters.
One of the Shusaku games in his collection now becomes the latest known Shusaku game (an unfinished game of 38 moves against Narabayashi, dated 23rd of 5th month 1862 - Shusaku died on 10th of 8th that year.)
One of the letters is from Shuwa to Shusaku's father relating his death:
"Shusaku was abstaining from meat during mourning (for his mother) this Spring. He ate a lot of shiitake mushrooms and perhaps because of that became very dizzy, suffered badly from boils on his head and had trouble with his eyes. In the sixth month, although he gradually made a complete recovery, he was weaker than usual and measles was raging. Both the pupils and the womenfolk took great care of him with medicines and so on, and he slowly got better, much to our relief. But on the 3rd day of the 8th month he relapsed a little, then on the fourth he had violent evacuations. Although we tried various other treatments, he was unable to recover and passed away of his illness between noon and one o'clock on the tenth day. Above all he was naturally of superior wit and intelligence, and his skill was recognised by all. Everyone, from his seniors to his pupils, said he could have become the Godokoro, but now he has left us in mid-course and that is now only a dream in our hearts."
It was the go researcher Araki Naomi, who was a professor of medicine, who inferred in the 1950s that Shusaku died of cholera (and that this was the third such epidemic in Edo, probably brought by westerners) but at the time Shuwa thought it was measles. The famous go book Zain Danso, written by a contemporary, also said that measles was highly prevalent and countless people suffered from it.
Zain Danso also says many in the Honinbo family were afflicted and forced to their sickbeds. Despite being asked by Shuwa to desist, Shusaku spent a lot of time tending them and caught the same disease.
On the 2nd of the 8th month (the day before Shusaku fell ill), Shuwa wrote to Shusaku's father asking if he had had measles as a child, and in another letter of the 8th of the 7th month he had said measles was raging in the latter part of the 5th month. So they all thought Shusaku had died of that.
The earlier weakness of Shusaku probably explains why he did not finish the game against Narabayashi, and we can safely infer that he played no others.
If you wish to see all the new games by Shusaku, you can buy the new complete collection (about 200 pounds), but quite a lot are in a small book on Shusaku by Fukui (Shurei Shusaku, Nihon Ki-in, with pro commentary) or a book by Nakata (Basho wa go o utta ka - "Did Basho play go?", Shinano Mainichi Newspapers) which is a wide-ranging collection of essays on old go. The above is largely based on the latter, which can be highly recommended.
-- John Fairbairn