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The Honinbo tournament is one of the most traditional Go tournaments in Japan. It works with the title holder format, meaning that the winner of the tournament holds the title of Honinbo, until a challenger overcomes his power and beats the Honinbo, thus becoming the new Honinbo.
The Honinbo title is decided in a best of seven match with 9 hours thinking time per person. The challenger comes from a league with 8 participants. The players in the league are ordered according to their results in the previous year. The winner becomes challenger (a playoff game decides in case of a tie) and the lowest four players demote and are replaced by the winners of the four qualification knockout tournaments. Again, in case of a tie a playoff game decides who demotes. The Honinbo is the third most prestigeous title with a first prize of about US$ 175 000 (Source: GoBase.org).
In this year, the 68th Honinbo title is decided between Takao Shinji 9 dan, the challenger, and Iyama Yuta 9 dan, the current Honinbo. Takao Shinji is an old school player, born in 1976, and has been a top class professional for many years, winning the Honinbo tournament in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Meijin in 2006 and Judan in 2008.
On the other hand, Iyama Yuta is a young japanese star, with a cosmic rise in the scene. At this point it is worth noting that Japan's Go strength has been in a steady fall in the last years, with the country falling well behind China and Korea, to the point that the japanese team could not win a single match in a Japan-China-Korea tournament in 2012. But then Iyama Yuta started shining, and he is currently the biggest hope of Japan, leading the recovery of the competitive level of the country. Currently Iyama Yuta holds 6 major titles in Japan: Honinbo, Kisei, Tengen, Judan, Oza and Gosei.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/imARvnN.png) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/erppN6D.png) Takao Shinji vs Iyama Yuta
Currently they have already played 6 games of the title match, and on the July 17th and 18th the ace match will finally decide who is the champion. The results so far are:
Game 1: Iyama Yuta wins with white, by 4.5 points.
Game 2: Takao Shinji wins with white, by resignation.
Game 3: Takao Shinji wins with black, by resignation.
Game 4: Iyama Yuta wins with black, by resignation.
Game 5: Iyama Yuta wins with white, by resignation.
Game 6: Takao Shinji wins with white, by resignation.
![[image loading]](http://i3.sinaimg.cn/ty/go/2013-06-18/U7880P6T12D6626464F44DT20130618202059.jpg) Takao Shinji (left) vs Iyama Yuta (right), playing one of the Honinbo matches.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find any stream of this tournament or any other japanese tournament at all, but you can follow the game on the IGS Pandanet server. If somebody (likely japanese people) is kind enough to point me where I can find a stream to watch it live (video feed of the board/players), I would be thankful for the rest of my life.
For those who don't know or don't follow Go, check it looks like this on TV (start watching from 1min):
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Thanks for posting. Love this kind of stuff... guess it is the forerunner of "e-sports".
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Oh thanks for this! I don't follow Go as much as I would like to lately ><
Anyways I had a quick google and it looks like it gets streamed live on niconico: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/igo
The matches you mentioned on the 17th/18th are on the broadcast schedule.
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Oh yeah. Watching anime finally paid off. I knew exactly that this was a thread about go, thank you hikaru no go! ;D
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Hikaru no go was awesome. First manga I ever bought as well xD
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Thanks Phrogs!
I'm planning on subscribing to BadukTV next month, it's a 24/7 channel of korean Go (Baduk) 
I was reading the nicovideo premium membership and it really doesn't sound much worth the investment for me, but apparently they let free members watch the VOD 30 mins after the end of the event, so I will be lame and go with that >.>
Btw, I bet TL didn't know, but Korea is #1 country in Go, very closely followed China (actually they are about equal), while Japan is a little step behind and the rest of the world is just hopeless. Sounds a lot like what we have in BW 
Another similarity, we also have blind people playing Go at high level:
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They have a serious competition in front of an assload of serious judges and still snacks and tea just stand there?
That's so fucking baller, only Asians can be this sick.
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This is awesome, thanks for sharing. I play some go here and there casually, trying to improve but haven't really gotten there yet.
A question: Since Japan popularized go, most of the terms are in japanese. Do Korea and China go players also use the same terms or do they have their own?
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They have their own names, for example:
Ko (japanese) = Pae (Korean)
Atari = Dansu
Komi = Deom
You can find more here
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bit late to post it after 6 of the matches have been played :-D
Will have a look, Go has always interested me in a strange way, especially this japan/china/korea thing, its always a central focus but its just like wut?
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My Calc and physics teacher was obsessed with Go and at the en of the year we just played go when we had no more lessons. I love it but I'm absolutely terrible lol.
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what is your online ranking and what server OP ?
also i think russia is best after asians
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Russia is definitely the best western country, but it is still way below China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, CN-Taipei, etc.
Dinerchtein, Svletana and Ilya Shikshin are mad strong yes, but the asian countries have like 100 times more players on the same level as them
Ah, I've always been very weak, when I was active I used to be 3d on KGS, even held 4d for a very little while, but after 4 years of 0% Go and 100% BW I fell to 1d.
Currently:
KGS 1d
IGS 1d+
Tygem 1d
Oro 2d
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im 3k KGS ^^ I played once vs motoki but got annihilated =p
would you be interesting by a bo3 someday ?
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United States2822 Posts
Ooh, I forgot this was going on. Nice to see that the race is so close. Thanks for reminding me!
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On July 17 2013 03:30 E.L.V.I.S wrote:
im 3k KGS ^^ I played once vs motoki but got annihilated =p
would you be interesting by a bo3 someday ?
Yea sure, I'm fabiano on KGS
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It has started, if anyone cares Cornel 9d is reviewing the live game on IGS!
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ahhh Facebook login makes it freee to waaaatch holy fuck
1st time Facebook is useful for me!
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I have the GoPanda 2 client now! =)
I just have to find the correct room.
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I found the room and so I thought I'd share the info!
It's Room 414 from within the GoPanda 2 client. The players are on a lunch break at the moment. It is Takao-san's turn to move.
It appears that the commentary is occuring in Room 313.
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You can also watch the live video feed (with japanese commentary and players/board shots) from the http://live.nicovideo.jp/ website with Facebook login!
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Thanks! I'll check it out!
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man, playing go blind is insane
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ged0AbM.png)
