We arrived at the Ki-in in the morning and sat down in the main hall. Since it was a thursday - the usual playing day for the professional players of the higher dan ranks - we decided to arrive a bit early for the club to see if we might geet a glimpse on a pro we know and go then up to the club at 10 o'clock (which we thought would be opening time). Before that we checked the games for today at Igo-kisen. The top game would be played between Hane Naoki 9p and Cho U 9p. Of course we didn't know if they'd be playing in Tokyo headquarters or somewhere else so we just sat there silently in the main hall and waited for somebody to arrive. We were not to be disappointed! With 100% security we saw O Meien 9p and Cho U 9p walk by. It was really cool (and a bit hard not to stare at them to be honest ^^; )! We didn't take any pictures, of course. That would have been too much (maybe it was already rude that we were present at that time... but it was really tempting to take a real look at the players you only "know" from websites and tournament results on the one day this was possible! >_<; ). While we were waiting, an elderly man approached us. He spoke English and German quite well and we talked for a bit. He had been living in Germany for a few years and was now at the Ki-in for a Go class held by a professional player in one of the classrooms right next to the main hall. Shortly afterwards, a young woman came to us. She helped with the organisation of the Go class and broke to us that the club wouldn't open until 11 o'clock.. same time as the museum in the basement. However, we were very lucky since she invited us to come to the Go class which would be starting at 10 o'clock and leave it early at 11 o'clock to go up to the club. Of course, we gladly accepted this kind offer and sat down at the places she showed us to in the back of the room. We didn't understand much (4k) /anything (1k) of what the professional was talking about, but we understood what he showed on the big board in front of the class. It was a lecture on damezumari in various positions. So it was still a really good learning opportunity! A short time after 11 o'clock we went up to the Go club on the second floor and were immediately amazed: The main hall was already 3/4 full with players!! Pretty much everyone was a retiree (there is some truth in every cliché it seems ^^; ), but here and there a few younger people (mostly women) were playing, too. Since there were also quite a few people waiting to be called for a game we quickly got to play a few games each.
1k/5d won all of his games but one, that day and 4k/2d managed to lose one game because of playing a move that was no ko threat - which lead to the loss of 18 points. In the end 4k (black) lost by komi. On the whole, the games were pretty calm: no big fights and when a fight occured or stones were cut, the outcome was mostly in our favour. However, there were two exceptions. One of them was a game 4k played. The opponent was a very aggressive player starting his first invasion at move 6 or something of the like. Invasion after invasion followed and he kind of succeeded everywhere - until the last chance for 4k arose to catch up. 4k caught a yummy group of weak white stones floating in the center (which he kindly enlarged to an even yummier size) and won the game by resignation.
The other exception was the third game 1k played at the Ki-in. The opponent was a 5d again, but this time very aggressive and 1k thought he would lose this time for sure, after messing up the first corner quite quickly. It was a wild game with a very, very big capturing race - which ended in favour of 1k (thanks to just 1 liberty!).
After that the people at the pairing counter thought they might have underestimated 1k and gave him a special opponent. This elderly man had over 420 rating points, which according to the system used by the Nihon Ki-in would mean, he should give 1k/5d a five stone handicap. Instead 1k was asked to play with only two stones. This game was very calm, especially compared to the previous one. For a long time it looked like white just didn't have enough points to overcome the territory black had build.
In the end white managed to cut and kill a big black group of 18 stones and the game ended shortly afterwards. Despite this big killing, white won by only 21 points.
I (4k) was especially happy to finally play a woman for my final game. I liked her style from all the people I played today the best, it seemed the most balanced to me. She was not afraid / reluctant to attack like the other players that day seemed to be but wasn't overly aggressive (like that one guy I played), too. It was a really nice, interesting game.
Before we left, 4k's rank got an update. Since she had been winning so much (5 out of 6 games), 4k got 10 additional points and earned a promotion to 3d (usually 10 points/wins are needed to gain a rank). This however, we couldn't put to a test since we left that evening and unfortunately didn't have the time to come back before we left for Osaka... Still, it was nice to be a dan for a day - even if it IS nothing more than a number and a letter. :-)
We have to apologise that we again cannot provide any game records. However, tomorrow the Osaka Go Camp will start and we definitely will record our games and put a few up here.
After the Nihon Ki-in we went to Shibuya again - to shoot the photos we couldn't on our first visit. We already wrote about Shibuya in a previous post, so i won't repeat this here. Instead here are the photos, that were missing from the first post:
