EARLY OTEAI (2)
The ranks were now assumed to be one-third of a stone apart and were to be re-assessed in April each year on the basis of two terms for 3-dan and below, and four terms for 4-dan and above. Points were allocated as shown in this table.
Each game thus provided a total of 120 points. Those who scored an average of 70 or more over the fixed period were promoted. But Group B pros of 3-dan and above could not be promoted until they entered Group A. If a Group A 4-dan or below fell below 50 points he was relegated to Group B.
The winner of the group of 3-dans and above in Group B and those of the Group B 2-dans who got outstanding results and were made 3-dan were put in Group A. Those of Group B who got less than 45 had to drop out of the Oteai for one year.
It was very severe. There were no interim promotions, so a player could earn enough points and then fall back through losing just one game. The number of games each session was eight for Group A and ten for Group B.
The prize system was depended on where you were ranked. The winning team members were awarded 500 yen each if they were in Group A, and 50 yen if in Group B. The individual prizes were 1,000 yen for Group A, with a second prize of 500 yen, third prize 250 yen and fourth prize 100 yen. The winner of Group B was given a prize of 100 yen and the runner-up 50 yen.
In the first session, Maeda Nobuaki 3-dan won first prize in Group A and Hayashi Yutaro 5-dan took second place. The Group B first prize went to Kato Minaichi 2-dan.
To give an idea of what this sort of money meant in 1928, 1,000 yen then is reckoned to be worth at least 10 million yen today. For that amount of money you could buy a good plot of land for a house and build the house for another 300 yen.
Apart from houses, of course, there was relatively little that required large amounts of cash in days before cars and foreign travel were the norm. Instead a good time was had by all. Segoe's team won the first pennant. He and Kato pooled part of their prizes to make a total of 1750 yen and they took a party of 12-13 to Higashiyama Spa in Aizu in northern Japan. Even that did not use up the money so they went on to another spa. At the time one night in a top grade inn was 5 yen, 1 masu of sake was 1 yen to 1.5 yen. "I was young then," Segoe fondly recalled.
Despite the fun and the small number of games it was a stressful system. Even in the first session there were some defaulted games either caused by stress or illness, or for reasons beyond a player's control - but that only added to the stress of the other games. For example, Hashimoto Utaro lost a game when he was called up for his conscription medical.
Why so stressful? One factor was onerous promotion rules. Despite the small fortunes the winners could enjoy, in practice only Group A players could make an independent living from go. Furthermore, each game could take up to four days. The time limits were 16 hours each for 7-dan and above, 12 hours for two 5-dans and above, 9 hours for a 5-dan playing with a 4-dan or 3-dan, 5 hours each for 2-dans and 1-dans. But a special rule was made for Suzuki - he got 16 hours whoever he played, though this still did not prevent him from losing on time in his game against Segoe in the Autumn 1927 session (click here to download that game). Allied to this for some players was the need to be in Tokyo for long periods. Players from Osaka such as Kubomatsu Katsukiyo, who joined in the Oteai in 1928, ended up staying in Tokyo two months at a time. The obligation to play for one's team was also seen as a burden.
The upshot was that around 1930 there were lots of defaults through ill health, and this was a major factor in planning the early career of the teenager Go Seigen when he was brought over from China (by Baron Okura, incidentally).
Some of the tension was taken out of the event deliberately after a famous incident in the Autumn 1928 Oteai. It involved Takahashi Shigeyuki 3-dan, who had only just joined that year, in a two-stone game against the opposing yokozuna Segoe Kensaku.
Segoe built up a commanding lead but carelessly allowed a ten-thousand year ko to develop. In such a ko (see Diagram 1 below), the player with the stones on the inside has the option of taking the ko and then playing another move inside to make the position into a true ko. In practice, finding time to win two kofights and sufficiently big threats to do so can take a long time - ten thousand years. He also has the option of winning the ko and connecting, creating a seki. At the time of the Segoe-Takahashi game there was a third option no longer available: do nothing.
Diagram 1
No rules of go had been codified then. Custom was the main arbiter, and if that failed higher authority was invoked. In this case custom failed.
The game reached the position in Diagram 2 after move 302. The ten-thousand year ko is on the lower right side. The full game is also available here in downloadable sgf format.
Diagram 2
Referee Iwasa Kei, writing in the New Year issue of "Kido" 1929 under the heading "An expert's view of the problem game" takes up the story:
"I was having a look at this game just as it reached its final stages. I did a rough count and Black was almost 20 points behind. Yet he had not resigned and was still playing on. I was thinking this was very strange when finally they both began filling in the dame [neutral points; moves 303 onwards]. Black played the last one and White had nowhere left to play. So Segoe [White] laughed and said, 'I don't know, what's happened?' At that point I turned to Takahashi and told him: 'The game was already over so you should have taken the ko and connected, so you could count up.' But then Kubomatsu, who was playing a game on the next board, got up and came over, and he said, 'So long as there's a ko there the game's not over. I claim it's a void game.'"
And that is how the incident arose. The two players' views were published in the Oteai Report at the time.
Segoe said:
"I knew that if it ended up with no ko threats for both sides, as it stood this large group was treated similarly to seki, or so I believed was the previous custom. That way all the problems are solved."
He had therefore expected that the sequence of events would be: Black fills in the dame, White takes the ko, Black has no ko threats, Black resigns.
Takahashi would not yield:
"But I agonised over this and could just not believe it was a mere seki. Naturally I still think that way."
His claim was that, although the game had finished, no result between the two players had been achieved.
Because the outcome of the East-West match could also hinge on this, the problem spread and the other games were all suspended. The dispute raged for a month. Among the opinions put forward were these:
- According to a count on the board, White has won.
- For Black to continue playing and quibble about the result is a dishonest attitude.
- Although the game was over, it was above all a mistake for White to fill in the dame.
- White was to blame for letting the position reach this state (he had let Black fill in the outside liberties, and - as Segoe conceded in the Oteai report - he had erred in playing 187 in the first place; if he had played White 192, Black 187, White 208 it was a simple seki).
There were many different views among the go public. In the end there was no choice but to make an administrative decision. Baron Okura announced the ruling of the referees:
"We declare that in the position up to move 302 White is adjudged to have won. However, this decision is limited to this game."
Because the fundamental problem was to be deferred until later, the temporary expedient of saying that Black did not lose was also adopted.
Kubomatsu also apologised for his intervention, this having been seen as initiating the problem and poisoning the atmosphere of the Oteai. This brought the matter to a close. It was, however, felt that the factionalism resulting from the team system was not a good thing (more precisely, Baron Okura, who had on other occasions reacted rather testily to squabbles between players, declared the future of the Nihon Ki-in was more important than petty rivalries), and so the East-West element was abolished in the next Oteai in 1929. Players henceforth were to play only for their own promotion points.
The final result of that Autumn 1928's Oteai was that the West (Takahashi's) team won the match. The individual prize went to Hayashi, with Murashima in second place and Suzuki in third.
The deferred ruling on ten-thousand year kos was put off until 1949 and the general, but far from ideal, overhaul of the rules of go. The modern interpretation, under Japanese rules is that if the side able to start the true ko declines to do so, at the end of the game he must take the ko and connect to produce a seki.
