23rd KISEI CHAMPION
The current Kisei holder is Cho Chikun 9-dan, who defeated challenger Kobayashi Koichi 9-dan 4-2 in a match culminating on 10 March 1999.
Kobayashi is an honorary Kisei because he has won it five times on the trot.
*****
Results
Round 1: Rin 1-0 Ota, Hane N. 1-0 Yamada K., Kiyonari 1-0 Ogaki
Round 2: Kobayashi S. 1-0 Rin, O Rissei 1-0 Hane N., Hikosaka 1-0 Kiyonari, Kobayashi K. 1-0 Yoda
Semi-final: O Rissei 1-0 Kobayashi S., Hikosaka 1-0 Kobayashi K.
HOW DOES THE KISEI TOURNAMENT WORK?
The Kisei tournament is sponsored by the newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun,
which does not have the oldest pedigree in go sponsorship but
certainly the grandest.
Top prize is 33 million yen.
The title holder is challenged in January-March by a challenger who
is the winner of a complex year-long qualification system designed
to give lower ranked players their moments of glory. (The winner
also became the title holder in the first term.)
Players at each of the nine dan grades play a knockout among
themselves. The number of rounds obviously varies but is usually six or
seven. The winners of the 1- to 6-dan events and the runners-up in the
7- and 8-dan events then join together in another knockout tournament.
(This stage has been handled differently in the past. The 1-dan winner
played the 2-dan winner; the winner of that game played the 3-dan
winner, and so on up the chain. This was called the Paramas system.)
The winner of this knockout, the top places in the 9-dan events and
the 8-dan and 7-dan winners go forward to yet another knockout where
they join various seeds - winners of other major tournaments and the
former Kisei and challenger.
The composition of the seeds depends on who
holds which title, but as an example, the 23rd Kisei featured the
Fujitsu, Oza, Judan and Tengen champions.
The semi-finalists of this knockout, called the Strongest Players
Challenge, play a best-of-three final to determine the challenger.
In the final (best-of seven) each player has 8 hours thinking time over
two days. Each game of the final is played in a different city.
In all other games thinking time is 5 hours each. Komi has always been
5.5 points.
The word Kisei means Go Sage and has traditionally been regarded as
a supreme accolade for a go player. It goes back almost 2,000 years to
Han times in China (as Qisheng; Korean: Kiseong).
In Japan the first Kisei was Honinbo Dosaku
(1645-1702). Honinbo Jowa (1787-1847) was regarded as a
Go Sage by some, but lost the accolade when his
political shenanigans were exposed. Honinbo Shusaku
(1829- 1862) is currently ranked with Dosaku as the only
two historical Go Sages.
Click here for a list of the KISEI WINNERS AND CHALLENGERS.
