La naissance de la Nihon Ki-in et le match Shûsaï Honinbô - Karigané Junichi 1924-1926
A Brief History of Modern Go
The main activities of the Nihon Ki-in were to be as follows :
Matches were to be held twice a month, with time limits of six hours per player for 4-dans and under, and eight hours for 5-dans and up, with 8-dans being allowed extensions to 20 hours. The professional handicap system was revised, with one rank being made the equivalent of one third of a stone, instead of one half as hitherto.
The Nihon Ki-in was to be the sole body issuing diplomas, with a promotions committee meeting twice a year to make promotions based mainly on the previous year's results.
Regular go lectures were instituted.
The Hoensha and Chuo Ki-in magazines were abolished and replaced by the Nihon Kiin magazine Kido. The publication of books was also planned. Plans were also made for training young players, teaching women, establishing branches all over Japan, and so on.
The activities of the Nihon Ki-in commenced on 23 July 1924, with the holding of the first official matches. Kido published its first issue in October. Then, in April 1926, the long awaited Nihon Ki-in headquarters at Tameike in Akasaka was completed. Until it was burnt down in a bombing raid in 1945, this building was the centre stage of Japanese go.
The defection of the Kiseisha
The unity of the go world did not last long. In October 1924 the Nihon Ki-in announced that five players had been expelled. The truth is that Karigane Jun'ichi 6-dan, Suzuki Tamejiro 6-dan, Takabe Dohei 6-dan, Kato Shin 6-dan, and Onoda Chiyotaro 5-dan had defected. The inclusion of Takabe Dohei in this group is ironic, considering the crucial role he played in founding the Nihon Ki-in, but he seems to have been a very restless person who was never long content In May of 1924 he had started behaving erratically, taking off for a tour of China and Manchuria in the midst of the preparations for setting up the Nihon Kiin. On returning to Japan, he plotted with the other players mentioned above to leave the Nihon Ki-in and set up a new body called the Kiseisha (the 'go justice society'). Needless to say, this earned him the enmity of Baron Okura.
The Kiseisha was supported by the Hochi Newspaper, which objected to the Nihon KiIn's practice of assigning games for publication by lot (this was to avoid having the newspapers concentrate on a few star players in their go columns). The Hochi, which was the newspaper most enthusiastic about go, published the games from a knockout tournament the Kiseisha organized. However, after about a year Suzuki rejoined the Nihon Ki-in, followed soon after by Kato. With just three players left, that took much of the interest out of the Hochi tournament
At this point, Shoriki Matsutaro, the president of the Yomiuri Newspaper, stepped in. Seeing a chance to promote his newspaper, which, with a circulation of less than 100,000, was not the giant it is today, he took up the cause of the Kiseisha and issued a public challenge to the Nihon Ki-in. At first the Nihon Ki-in directors were inclined to ignore it, but the Yomiuri conducted a skilful campaign to arouse public opinion. Shoriki also approached Shûsaï personally, and the balance was tilted by a statement issued by Shûsaï: 'A match would help to raise the level of go. I regret the necessity for me to obtain the permission of the Board of Directors to play outsiders. The Nihon Ki-in directors gave way, and on 27 September 1926 the historic match between the Nihon Ki-in and the Kiseisha began.
The match took the form of an irregular knockout tournament, with each player continuing until he was defeated. Most attention was focused on the lead-off game, the first encounter between
Shûsaï and Karigane in six years. (Bringing about this game was the main point of the whole exercise.) The hostility between the two over the Honinbo succession was well known, so there was enormous public interest. Playing time was 16 hours each, and the game was purposely split up into many sessions so that the Yomiuri could prolong the newspaper coverage as much as possible. Demonstration boards were set up in public places all over Japan to relay the latest moves, and game figures were published every day, with eye-witness accounts by famous writers.
The project was an enormous success for the Yomiuri, which is said to have tripled its circulation. The game also lived up to expectations, and in fact is one of the most spectacular games in go history, being one massive fight from beginning to end. After seven playing sessions spread over 23 days, Karigane, who played black without giving a komi (he had been promoted to 7-dan by the Kiseisha), lost on time, but he was behind anyway.
Things did not improve for the Kiseisha after this initial setback.
from The Go Player’s ALMANAC (1992 edition) p49
Mise à jour le 29/11/2012