From: davies@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Subject: December Go News
Date: 31 Dec 92 19:07:59 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan

==================   DECEMBER GO NEWS FROM JAPAN   =====================
     For the Japanese go community, 1992 ended with a slight shock. Ma 
Xiaochun, the Chinese Mingren, defeated Kobayashi Koichi, the Japanese 
Meijin, in the Meijin-Mingren play-off. The shock was all the greater 
because Kobayashi, who takes China-Japan competition seriously, had 
never lost to Ma before and had an enviable 29-4 record against Chinese 
opponents overall. Ma himself did not seem to think he had much chance: 
his announced aim was not to win the match, but simply to win one game. 
He accomplished that aim by a point and a half on December 15 when 
Kobayashi became over-generous in the late middle part of the first 
game. Kobayashi came back to win the second game on December 17 by 
resignation, but Ma took the third on December 18, again by a point and 
a half, through expert defensive play. Now it will be up to the Japanese 
super-go team to seek revenge when they face Ma next year.
                   *                   *                   *
     In the fourth game of the Tengen title match challenger Yamashiro 
Hiroshi, down to his last chance, decided to challenge the common wisdom 
that territory is best made at the sides and corners. Concentrating 
wholly on the center, with the willing cooperation of his opponent Rin 
Kaiho he surrounded a kidney-shaped area worth about seventy points. In 
the end it was common wisdom and Rin, however, who triumphed by 3 1/2 
points. Rin has his fourth straight Tengen title and the thirty-second 
title of his career.
                   *                   *                   *
     Rin's victory meant that in 1992 all seven of the main Japanese 
defender-challenger matches were won by the defender: Kisei (Kobayashi), 
Judan (Takemiya), Honinbo (Cho), Gosei (Kobayashi), Meijin (Kobayashi), 
Oza (Fujisawa), and Tengen (Rin).
                   *                   *                   *
     Meanwhile, though Yamashiro may have fallen short in the Tengen 
title match, at the end of the year he was on top in the Honinbo League 
with a 3-0 record. Rin and Kobayashi Koichi trail at 2-1.
                   *                   *                   *
     On the same day that Rin beat Yamashiro, Aoki Kikuyo defeated 
Yoshida Mika in the challenger-deciding game of the Women's Meijin 
match. For a third consecutive year the title match will pit Aoki 
against Sugiuchi Kazuko. The match starts January 20.
                   *                   *                   *
     The fourth and final found of the Kirin Cup found the Tokyo A Team 
facing the A team from the Kanto-Koshinetsu region, roughly the region 
surrounding Tokyo. According to go theory, when one side surrounds the 
other the surrounding side has the advantage, and so it turned out, but 
the advantage was mighty thin: only half a point, the margin by which 
Cho Chikun beat Takemiya Masaki in the deciding game. Two amateurs, 
Nakazono Seizo on the Kanto-Koshinetsu A team and Hu Yanhua on the Tokyo 
A team, won in all four rounds to finish with perfect scores, for which 
they received the perfect reward: a year's supply of Kirin beer.