1st Honinbo title 1941

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# The 1st Honinbo title match

The 1st Honinbo Tournament started in June 1939 with 27 players. Eight qualified for a series of four mini-tournaments. Sekiyama Riichi and Kato Shin emerged as 1st and 2nd from these mini-tournaments and played a title match. This ended in a 3-3 tie, and Sekiyama Riichi, first after the mini-tournament series, became the first new Honinbo title holder.

> Shusai, it will be remembered, had bequeathed the title of Hon'inbo to the Nihon Kiin to be awarded in a tournament. When Shusai retired, preparations began for the first Hon'inbo tournament, but there were a number of problems to be overcome first. The tournament was to be open to all Nihon Kiin players of 4 dan and up, but there was great resistance to the idea of players of different ranks playing even games - this had been unheard of in the past. As a compromise, a long series of preliminary tournaments were held in order to minimise the number of even games between differently ranked players - thus there was a 4 dan tournament, the winner of which played in a 5 dan tournament; the winner of this joined a complicated two-stage 6 dan tournament, from which four players emerged to join the four 7 dans in a final eliminator (there were no 8 dans at this time, and of course no 9 dan), to decide the two players who would play in the title match. (Andrew Grant, Four Hundred Years of Japanese Go)

## Preliminaries

Four 7-dans, nine 6-dans, eight 5-dans and six 4-dans took part in the tournament. To avoid the embarrasment of losing against a player of low rank, the tournament proceeded in per-rank sections.

The 4-dan section consisted of Mukai Kazuo, Takahashi Shigeyuki, Nakagawa Arata, Nakamura Yutaro, Takagawa Kaku and Tanaka Fujio. The final Mukai Kazuo vs. Takahashi Shigeyuki (B+R) was won by Mukai Kazuo (4d), who progressed to the 5-dan section.

Apart from Mukai Kazuo, the 5-dan section consisted of Tsuyamori Itsuro, Shinohara Masami, Murashima Yoshinori, Fujisawa Kuranosuke, Hasegawa Akira, Yamaguchi Sanseki, Yoshida Misako and Hosokawa Senjin. The two players Shinohara Masami and Murashima Yoshinori progressed to the 6-dan section.

Apart from these two, the 6-dan section consisted of Iwamoto Kaoru, Onoda Chiyotaro, Kubomatsu Katsukiyo, Kimura Hirozo, Maeda Nobuaki, Hayashi Yutaro, Sekiyama Riichi, Hashimoto Utaro and Go Seigen. The four 6-dans Go Seigen, Maeda Nobuaki, Sekiyama Riichi and Kubomatsu Katsukiyo progressed to the next stage. (In fact Go Seigen was promoted to 7-dan halfway.)

## The mini-tournaments

Four mini-tournaments were played between eight players. These used 4.5 point komi, and 13 hours per player, except that Suzuki Tamejiro was allowed to use 16 hours. The final result was

> # | player | pts
> --- | --- | ---
> 1 | Sekiyama Riichi (6d) | 16
> 2 | Kato Shin (7d) | 15
> 3 | Go Seigen (6d,7d) | 14
> 4 | Maeda Nobuaki (6d) | 13
> 5 | Kitani Minoru (7d) | 9
> 6 | Segoe Kensaku (7d) | 8
> 7 | Kubomatsu Katsukiyo (6d) | 7
> 8 | Suzuki Tamejiro (7d) | 6

The points here were awarded as follows: places 1, 2, 3, 4 in each mini-tournament gave 6, 5, 4, 3 points, respectively, while loss in the first round gave 1 point.

Thanks to this points system, Go Seigen, with 6 wins in 8 games, ended below Sekiyama Riichi, with 6 wins in 9 games, and Kato Shin, with 5 wins in 9 games.

### The first mini-tournament

> 1st mini-tournament
> Suzuki Tamejiro | Go Seigen (W+8.5) | Go Seigen (B+R) | Go Seigen (B+7.5)
> Go Seigen
> Kubomatsu Katsukiyo | Maeda Nobuaki (W+4.5)
> Maeda Nobuaki
> Segoe Kensaku | Sekiyama Riichi (W+0.5) | Sekiyama Riichi (B+3.5)
> Sekiyama Riichi
> Kato Shin | Kato Shin (B+2.5)
> Kitani Minoru

> The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Kato Shin (B+11.5).

> Standings: 1. Go Seigen, 6 pts; 2. Sekiyama, 5 pts; 3. Kato, 4 pts; 4. Maeda, 3 pts; 5-8. Kitani, Segoe, Kubomatsu, Suzuki, 1 pt each.

### The second mini-tournament

> 2nd mini-tournament
> Kubomatsu Katsukiyo | Kato Shin (W+2.5) | Kato Shin (B+R) | Sekiyama Riichi (W+1.5)
> Kato Shin
> Segoe Kensaku | Suzuki Tamejiro (W+0.5)
> Suzuki Tamejiro
> Maeda Nobuaki | Maeda Nobuaki (B+3.5) | Sekiyama Riichi (W+2.5)
> Go Seigen
> Kitani Minoru | Sekiyama Riichi (W+1.5)
> Sekiyama Riichi

> The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Maeda Nobuaki (W+R).

> Standings: 1. Sekiyama, 11 pts; 2. Kato, 9 pts; 3-4. Go Seigen, Maeda, 7 pts each; 5. Suzuki, 4 pts; 6-8. Kitani, Segoe, Kubomatsu 2 pts each.

### The third mini-tournament

> 3rd mini-tournament
> Suzuki Tamejiro | Kitani Minoru (W+R) | Kitani Minoru (B+R) | Kitani Minoru (B+R)
> Kitani Minoru
> Kato Shin | Kato Shin (B+0.5)
> Go Seigen
> Maeda Nobuaki | Maeda Nobuaki (B+R) | Maeda Nobuaki (B+2.5)
> Segoe Kensaku
> Kubomatsu Katsukiyo | Kubomatsu Katsukiyo (B+R)
> Sekiyama Riichi

> The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Kubomatsu Katsukiyo (W+R).

> Standings: 1. Sekiyama, Kato, Maeda, 12 pts each; 4-5. Go Seigen, Kitani, 8 pts each; 6. Kubomatsu, 6 pts; 7. Suzuki, 5 pts; 8. Segoe, 3 pts.

### The fourth mini-tournament

> 4th mini-tournament
> Sekiyama Riichi | Sekiyama Riichi (B+2.5) | Go Seigen (W+1.5) | Go Seigen (B+R)
> Maeda Nobuaki
> Go Seigen | Go Seigen (B+R)
> Kitani Minoru
> Suzuki Tamejiro | Kato Shin (W+R) | Segoe Kensaku (W+2.5)
> Kato Shin
> Kubomatsu Katsukiyo | Segoe Kensaku (W+R)
> Segoe Kensaku

> The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Sekiyama Riichi (B+R)

> Result: 1. Sekiyama, 16 pts; 2. Kato, 15 pts; 3. Go Seigen, 14 pts; 4. Maeda, 13 pts; 5. Kitani, 9 pts; 6. Segoe, 8 pts; 7. Kubomatsu, 7 pts; 8. Suzuki, 6 pts.

## 1st Honinbo Title

The first Honinbo Title match was between Sekiyama Riichi (6d) and Kato Shin (7d). The time allowance was 13 hours each. No komi was used - Kato Shin strongly disliked komi. The result was a tie, 3-3: Black won all games. Since Sekiyama had been first after the mini-tournaments, he was declared winner.

date | black | white | result | #mv | sgf
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
1941-05-18 | Kato Shin | Sekiyama Riichi | B+R | 157 | sgf
1941-05-27 | Sekiyama Riichi | Kato Shin | B+1 | 244 | sgf
1941-06-09 | Kato Shin | Sekiyama Riichi | B+1 | 235 | sgf
1941-06-21 | Sekiyama Riichi | Kato Shin | B+R | 119 | sgf
1941-07-01 | Kato Shin | Sekiyama Riichi | B+11 | 239 | sgf
1941-07-15 | Sekiyama Riichi | Kato Shin | B+R | 149 | sgf

As Honinbo, Sekiyama took the name Honinbo Risen.