In 1937, at the age of 63, Honinbo Shusai announced his plan to retire and that he would play one final game. A tournament was organized among all 6-dans and above to decide Shusai's last opponent. Kitani Minoru won all 5 of his games, beating out such players as Kato Shin, Maeda Nobuaki, and even two of his teachers, Kubomatsu Katsukiyo and Suzuki Tamejiro. This was the first game to adopt the sealed play system, meaning that the last move of a session was written down, unknown to anyone except the player who played last, and only reveiled at the beginning of the next play session.
First Session: June 26, 1939 - Koyokan
A conservative opening for
one of the pioneers of the New Fuseki. (The other pioneer being
Go Seigen.)
Second Session: June 27 - Koyokan
The Master's sealed move from
the day before.
Third Session: July 11 - Hakone
The Master's sealed move after 24
minutes of consideration.
Fourth Session: July 16 - Hakone
Kitani's sealed move.
Including the next move, Black 43, Kitani has used 6 hours 52 minutes.
The Master has used 4 hours 38 minutes.
Fifth Session: July 21 - Hakone
Kitani's sealed move.
The Master
began to have pains in his chest and loose his appetite.
One move took the Master 1 hour 20 minutes. He used a total
of 3 hours 29 mintues for all 11 moves made this day. In total he's
used 5 hours 57 minutes. Kitani has used 10 hours 28 minutes.
Sixth Session: July 26 - Hakone
Kitani's sealed move.
Seventh Session: July 31 - Hakone
The Master's sealed play took
44 minutes to make.
"The match was entering
its middle phases. Every play was a difficult one. It was fairly
clear which territories White and Black had staked out, and the
time was approaching when a calculation of the final score might
be possible. Proceed immediately into a final showdown, invade enemy
ground, challenge to close-in fighting somewhere on the board? -the
time had come for a summing up, and for projecting the phases to
come."
Eighth Session: August 5 - Hakone
The Master's sealed move.
At this
point in the game the Master's heart condition had grown so bad
that the playing sessions were reduced in time to two hours.
Ninth Session: August 10 - Hakone
The Master's sealed move.
At this
point the Master could no longer walk. Up to this point White has
used 10 hours 31 minutes and Black 15 hours 45 minutes.
Tenth Session: August 14 - Hakone
Kitani's sealed move - a "peep"
to divide the Master's stones.
By prior agreement, only one move
was made this day. The Master thought for 33 minutes, the move was
sealed and that day he was placed into St. Luke's Hospital. The
game was put on hold for 3 months. Up to this point, White had used
14 hours 58 minutes and Black 17 hours 47 minutes.
Eleventh Session: November 18 - Dankoen at Ito
The Master's sealed
move.
Later the Master felt that white 100 was "ill-considered"
and that he "...should have ignored the peep and pressed ahead at
S-8(x) and so secured the White territory off toward the lower right.
Black had threatened, to be sure, but there was no immediate need
for him to cut my line, and even if he had I would not have been
in great difficulty. Had I used White 100 to protect my own ground,
the outlook would not have been such as to permit sanguineness on
Black's part."
Kitani said, "See what an idiot I am. It shouldn't have taken
me a minute to make the jump. Three and a half hours deciding whether
to jump(A) or to swim(B)."
Black 101, invading the White formation
in the lower right-hand corner, was an offensive play demanding
a response and worth a potential fourteen or fifteen points."
The Master took only 5 minutes to respond.
Kitani sealed the final play of the session after 42 mintues. During
this day Kitani used 4 hours 14 minutes and the Master used 10 minutes.
At this point Kitani has used up 21 hours 20 minutes of his alloted
40 hours.
Twelfth Session: November 25 - Ito
Kitani's sealed play
"Now the offensive had passed to White. A stern, intent expression
on his face, the Master closed his eyes and breathed deeply. In
the course of the session his face had taken on a coppery flush.
His cheeks twitched. He seemed to hear neither the wind nor the
drum of a passing pilgrim. Yet he took forty- seven minutes for
his next move."
Thirteenth Session: November 28 - Ito
When his sealed move was opened,
Kitani said "I must do something about that corner. It's on long-term
loan, and the interest is high."
"The time had come to stake
everything on a grand assault." Kitani "had not seemed prepared
to play before the noon recess, but at eight minutes after the hour
there came the smart click of stone on board. The Master grunted.
He had been leaning on an armrest. Now he brought himself upright,
his jaw drawn in, his eyes rolled upwards as if to bore a hole through
the board. He had thick eyelids, and the deep lines from the eyelashes
to the eyes set off the intentness of his gaze. White now needed
to defend his inner territories against the clear threat presented
by Black 115."
"The plays down to White 120 came in quick succession. The standard
pattern would have had the Master falling quickly back with White
120, but he chose a firm block even though the result was an unstable
triangular formation. The air was tense, for a showdown was at hand.
If he had given ground it would have been to conceed a point or
two, and he could not make even so small a concession in so tight
a match. He took just one minute for a play that could mean the
fine difference between victory and defeat, and for Kitani it
was like cold steel."
"Games can be won and lost by a single point.
If White was clinging stubbornly to a mere two points, then it was
for Black to step boldly forward."
"Kitani seemed to be fighting
back a reckless impulse. 'I have a feeling I'm going to make a mistake.
Make a botch of the whole thing.'" He took 1 hour 44 minutes to
seal the move.
Fourteenth Session: December 1 - Ito
Kitani's sealed Black 121
was met with much resentment.
"...it had the look of a play from
the ko situation to a distant part of the board. A wave of revulsion
came over me[Kawabata].
Had Kitani taken advantage of the fact
that Black 121 was a sealed play? Had he put the device of the sealed
play to tactical use? If so, he was not being worthy of himself."
"...and Black 129 finally lashed out to decapitate the triangle
the Master had so stubbornly put together with White 120."
Go Seigen:
"Firmly blocked by White 120, Black embarked with resolution upon
the aggressive sequence from Black 123 to Black 129. It is the sort
of play, suggesting a strongly competitive spirit, which one sees
in close games."
"But the Master pulled away from this slashing attack, and, counterattacking
to the right, blocked the thrust from the Black position. I was
startled. It was a wholly unexpected play. I felt a tensing of my
muscles, as if the diabolic side of the Master had suddenly been
revealed. Detecting a flaw in the plans suggested by Black 129,
so much in [Kitani's] own characteristic style, had the Master dodged
away and turned to in-fighting by way of counterattack? Or was he
asking for a slash so that he might slash back, wounding himself
to down his adversary? I even saw in that White 130 something that
spoke less of a will to fight than of angry disdain. 'A fine thing,'
[Kitani] muttered over and over. 'A very fine thing.' He was still
deliberating Black 131 when the noon recess was called. 'A fine
thing he's done to me. A terrible thing, that's what it is. Earthshaking.
I make a stupid play myself, and here I am with my arm twisted behind
me.'"
White 130 turns out to be the fatal move for White. After
this move Kitani's victory is certain.
"The Master lamented the
play in his review of the match. 'White 130 was the fatal error.
The proper sequence would have been to cut immediately at P-11(A),
and see how Black replied. If for instance he replied at P-12(B),
then White 130 would be the correct play. Even if he extended, as
with Black 131, White need not hurry with the oblique extension
at Q-8(C), but could quietly consolidate his ranks with M-9(D).
Whatever variations might have occured, the lines would have been
more complex than on the chart as we have it, and an extrememly
close fight would have ensued.'
During the noon recess the Master
was quoted as saying, "The match is over. Mr. [Kitani] ruined it
with that sealed play. It was like smearing ink over the picture
we had painted. The minute I saw it I felt like forfeiting the match.
Like telling them it was the last straw. I really thought I should
forfeit. But I hesitated, and that was that."
Go Seigen, however,
had this to say: "White need not respond as the Master did with
122 even to Black's 121, but could defend himself at H-19(X). Black
would thus find the possible plays from ko more limited."
"A year
later, however, in 'Selected Pieces on Go,' from Collected Works
of the Master, he[Master Shusai] spoke out quite openly. 'Now was
the time to make effective use of Black 121. We must note that if
[Kitani] proceeded at his leisure (which is to say waited until
White had linked diagonally), there was a chance that Black 121
would not suffice.'"
"[Kitani] seems to have been by no means as startled and confused
by White's withdrawal as the rest of us were. If White took the
four black stones to the right, Black would quite simply overrun
the White ranks toward the center of the board."
"[Kitani] pondered
over Black 131 for 1 hour 15 minutes... At two in the afternoon
he took up a stone. 'Shall I?' He paused and finally played. The
Master, seated bold upright, thrust his head forward and rapped
irritably on the rim of the brazier. He glared at the board. He
was counting up points."
After the match, the Master was quoted as saying, "The coup de grace
came with the assault following Black 133. However desperate he
might be in his search for remedies, White was powerless to send
the crushing wave back."
"The White triangle that had been cut off
by Black 129 was cut on the other side by Black 133..."
"...with white stones in check play after play down to Black 139,
the 'earthshaking' changes of which [Kitani] had spoken took shape
around and below the three white stones. Black had invaded the very
heart of the White formation. I could almost hear the sound of the
collapse."
Fifteenth Session: December 4 - Ito
"'I think I would like if possible
to finish today,' the Master said to the managers on the morning
of December 4."
"The faithful battle reporter, I felt a tightening
in my chest at the thought that after more than half a year the
match was to finish today. And the Master's defeat was clear to
everyone."
"The tension of the final encounter at close quarters
is unlike that through the opening and middle stages. Raw nerves
seem to flash, there is something grand and even awesome about the
two figures pressing forward into closer combat. Breath came more
rapidly, as if two warriors were parrying with dirks; fires of knowledge
and wisdom seemed to blaze up."
"When [Kitani\] played Black 191, the Master's head fell forward,
his eyes were wide, he moved nearer the board. Both men were fanning
themselves violently."
"The last stages of a grand match, I had heard, were so horrible
that one could scarcely bear to watch. Yet the Master seemed quite
unperturbed. One would not have guessed that he was the loser."
"He[the Master] was utterly quiet when [Kitani] made the last play,
Black 237. As the Master filled in a neutral point, Onoda [one of
the judges] said: 'It will be five points?'
'Yes, five points,'
said the Master."
"What would have been the outcome, then, if the
Master had not blundered and the 'earthshaking' changes had not
come? A defeat for Black? An amateur like myself cannot really say,
but I do not think that Black would have lost. I had come almost
to believe as an article of faith, from the manner, the resolve,
with which [Kitani] approached the game, that he would avert defeat
even if in the process he must chew the stones to bits."
For the
entire game the Master had used 19 hours 57 minutes and Kitani had
used 34 hours 19 minutes.
A year and 45 days later the 21st and
last of the hereditary Honinbo, Shusai Meijin, passed away. To quote
the first Honinbo, Sansa Meijin, "If life were go, I'd start a
ko fight and surely live, but on the road to death there's no move
left at all."
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