Kobayashi Izumi 4-dan suddenly and unexpectedly found herself without a title after defeat in the 3rd Women's Kisei, also known as the Dokomo Cup. The new holder is Chinen Kaori 3-dan, who also beat Kobayashi 3-1 in the Women's Honinbo final in November 1999. In the Kisei final, completed on 21 February 2000, the winning margin was even more decisive: 2-0.
Ironically, it seems as if Kobayashi has been too successful. Her constant appearances in the upper reaches five women's tournaments have apparently drained her energy by the time she reaches a final. The women's events could do with some spacing out over the year.
Black 19 to 25, grabbing territory through invasion, and 29 are distinctively Kobayashi-type moves.
Before 31 Black should force at 38 to prevent White's connection along the edge. Invading again at 39 instead of turning at 51 (more consistent with the strategy of erasing White's moyo) defined the course of the game - Black wanted to be in the driving seat and to be the one to start the fighting, The same aggressive tone comes through with Black 49 (simpler is 50). But White got in a good counterpunch at 52.
*****
Older News From 12 February 2000: CHINEN TO CHALLENGE KOBAYASHI
Chinen Kaori is to be the challenger to Kobayashi Izumi in the title final of the 3rd Women's Kisei, also known as the Dokomo Cup.
But what was most noteworthy was the good showing of Kato Keiko 2-dan, whom Chinen beat in the challengers' final. Kato only became a pro in April 1999.
Older News From 19 January 2000: WOMEN'S KISEI SEMI-FINALS
The semi-finals of the 3rd Women's Kisei, also known as the Dokomo Cup, took place over the festive season. First up on 11 December (broadcast on Sky PerfecTV) was Sakakibara Fumiko 5-dan against Kato Keiko 2-dan. On 18 December Koyama Mitsuru 5-dan played Hosaka Mayu 2-dan. On Christmas Day Chinen Kaori 3-dan played Shinkai Hiroko 5-dan, and on New Year's Day Yoshida Mika 6-dan played Umezawa Yukari 3-dan.
Koyama Mitsuru is not a newcomer. This is the new name of Nishida Terumi, who has opted now to take the name of her husband, Koyama Ryugo.
HOW DOES THE WOMEN'S KISEI WORK?
The full name is the DoCoMo Cup Women's Kisei Tournament. The sponsors are NTT DoCoMo (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation), suppliers of public telephones.
Prize money in Term 1 was 5 million yen for the winner, then was reduced to 3.5 million yen.
The main event is a 16-player straight knockout culminating in a best-of-three final. Games are broadcast weekly on SKY PerfecTV! Channel 320
(a go and shogi channel).
The preliminaries are open to all female pros but are designed to give 11 players from the Nihon Ki-in (9 from Tokyo, 2 from Osaka or Nagoya)
and 2 from the Kansai Ki-in. The other three places are seeded for title holders. In Term 1 the winner of the knockout became the holder after a
best-of-three final. Thereafter the knockout ends in a single game to find a challenger to the holder.
Time limits are 30 seconds a move plus a total of 10 minutes long-thinking time made up of 1-minute units. Komi is 5.5 points.
NTT DoCoMo is the to mobile communications arm of the sponsoring company NTT. DoCoMo is a pun on dokomo = everywhere. 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 this case it is an imitation of the main (men's) Kisei tournament.
WOMEN'S KISEI FINALISTS
Year
Term
Winner
Score
Loser
1998
1
Kobayashi Izumi 2d
2-0
Kobayashi Chizu 5d
1999
2
Kobayashi Izumi 2d
2-1
Sugiuchi Kazuko 8d
2000
3
Chinen Kaori 3d
2-0
Kobayashi Izumi 4d
FAMOUS MOMENTS
In Term 2, by becoming the challenger Mrs Sugiuchi Kazuko 8-dan became, at 73, the oldest player, male or female, to appear in a title match. Since her opponent, Kobayashi Izumi was just 23, the gap of 50 years between them was also a new record for a title match.
Click here to download an sgf version of Game 2 of that series in which Sugiuchi also became the oldest player to win a game in a title match.
