The reason tournaments for top young players are popular with sponsors is not just that the players come cheaper - they also hope to get testosterone-charged games that keeps the fans on the edge of their seats. The final of the 30th New Stars Tournament broadcast in March 2000 certainly lived up to those expectations.
Two popular and in-form all-Japanese boys slugged each other for 178 exciting moves after Takao Shinji 6-dan started with his first two moves at 5-5 points and Yamashita Keigo 6-dan answered with move 2 at the centre point. A crosscut tesuji against the centre stone was played on move 9! Neither player normally plays New Fuseki moves like this, so they were clearly grandstanding - but the fans were the winners. On the board, Yamashita came out ahead, obviously enjoying his first outing in this event tremendously.
Here is the final game in downloadable sgf format.
The full results leading to the final of the 30th New Stars are given below.
The New Stars Tournament Cup is a year-long lightning tournament shown on TV Tokyo (Channel 12). It is the junior partner of this same sponsor's Hayago Championship.
Top prize is 800,000 yen. The runner-up gets 180,000 yen. Match fees are also paid.
The tournament is a 16-player knockout with a single-game final, which is in the spring. The players invited are the top prize-money winners from the Nihon Ki-in and Kansai Ki-in up to and including 7-dan at the time of the start of the event.
Time limits are 30 seconds a move but each player may spend up to three minutes a move on two occasions. Komi has always been 5.5 points.
The Japanese name for this event is the Shin'ei Tournament. We are calling it New Stars here to avoid confusion with the very similar NEC Shun'ei Cup, and also the Shinjin-O.
