Atomic-bomb gameThe number of go tournaments held in Japan
during World War II were far fewer than those held before the war.
Many young players were being drafted into military service and,
because of a paper shortage, newspapers were compelled to reduce
their size. Go columns were among the first to be dropped. In spite
of this, newspapers continued to sponsor tournaments and games, even
though they would probably never be published.
As the war dragged on, conditions for staging even the most
important games became extremely difficult. In the spring of 1945,
Kaoru Iwamoto, 7-dan, earned the right to challenge Hashimoto Utaro
for the third Honinbo title. However, finding a venue for the title
match in bombed-out Tokyo had become impossible.
A venue for the games was finally found in Hiroshima. However,
the police chief of the city, who was an amateur go player, ordered
the players not to play there, since it was too dangerous. However,
when the police chief was called away on official business, the
players, taking advantage of his absence, ignored his order and
played the first game of the match July 23-25 under a rain of
bullets from strafing airplanes.
When the chief returned and heard that a game had been played, he
was furious and fabade players in no uncertain terms from playing
any more games in Hiroshima.
Another venue was found in Itsukaichi, an outer suburb of
Hiroshima, and the second game was played there Aug. 4-6.
On the morning of Aug. 6, Hashimoto happened to be in the garden
when the atomic bomb was dropped. He saw a brilliant flash of light
and the mushroom cloud rise above the city. A tremendous blast of
wind shattered all the windows and turned the playing room into a
shambles. The position on the board had to be set up again. Under
these circumstances, they managed to complete the game; Hashimoto
won by five points.
That evening, atomic-bomb survivors started to pour into
Itsukaichi and the players began to understand the magnitude of the
disaster and just how lucky they were. The house in which they were
to have played their game was destroyed and its owner killed.
The war ended a week later and the match was resumed in November,
ending in a 3-3 tie. A playoff became necessary, but Japan was in
such disarray that it was not until July 1946 that a best-of-three
playoff was arranged. Iwamoto won the first two games, and thereby
took the Honinbo title.
Hashimoto and Iwamoto were important forces in the go world
during the years following the war. Had they been killed in
Hiroshima that fateful day, the history of go today would most
likely be quite different.
Iwamoto defended the Honinbo title against Minoru Kitani in 1947,
but Hashimoto came back in 1959 to recapture it. Then, with the
prestige of holding the top title in the go world at that time,
Hashimoto broke away from the Japan Go Association and formed the
Western Japan Go Association. Although, a bitter rivalry existed
between these two organizations for a while, they coexist amicably
today and cooperate on many levels to promote go in Japan.
Iwamoto, who will be 97 on Feb. 5, has contributed much to the
popularization of go in the West. In 1929, he retired as a go player
and immigrated to Brazil. However, two years later he returned to
Japan and resumed his go-playing career. Perhaps it was this
experience that caused him to want to make go a truly international
game. He has gone on numerous overseas tours and has established go
centers in Amsterdam, Sao Paulo, Seattle and New York.
More on capturing stonesLast week, I presented three
problems in which Black was asked to capture some white stones. The
answers are below.
Problem 1.
Capturing the white stone on the 1-1 point with 1 is correct.
The black stone on the edge is also in atari, but it is wrong for
Black to connect at 1. This lets White save his stone by connecting
at 2.
Problem 2.
Capturing two stones on the edge with Black 1 is correct.
Black's stone on the edge is also in atari, but it is wrong for
Black to try and rescue it by extending to 1. White will connect at
2, rescuing his two endangered stones.
Problem 3. Black 1
is correct. With this move, Black captures two white stones. If
White were to play 1, he could rescue his two stones. The diagram on
the right shows the result of this capture.
Connecting stones White's stones in
Diagram 1 are not connected. White 1 in Diagram 2,
however, forms an unbreakable link between these four stones. If
Black can play 1 in Diagram 3, the two white stones at the
top and the two on the right are separated.
In Problem 4 and
Problems 5, Black must play so as to link up all of his
stones.
 Problem 6. How can Black link up his marked
stone?
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