Hikaru no Go

From AMERICAN GO E-JOURNAL, October 20, 2009; Volume 10, #50:

Iyama Beats Cho Decisively To Become Youngest Meijin: Challenger Iyama Yuta 8P won Game 5 of the 34th Japanese Meijin to take the title from Cho U 9P with a decisive 4-1 score. At the age of just 20 years and 4 months Iyama also becomes the youngest major title holder in Japanese history and breaks the record that Cho Chikun 9P held for 23 years.

Can Shindou and Touya be far behind? ;-)

In Japan, there are seven major Go tournament games: Meijin, Tengen, Judan, Gosei, Ouza, Kisei, and Honinbo. Fans of Hikaru no Go may remember that Touya Kouyou (Akira’s father) held five of these titles before he resigned from the Go Association (Volume 14).

It is an interesting coincidence that in real life, Cho U has just taken his fifth title, the Judan, defeating the previous titleholder, Takao Shinji on April 16. Cho U now holds the Meijin, Tengen, Ouza, Gosei, and Judan titles – the same five titles previously won by Touya Meijin.

Cool, hmm?

BTW, the winner of the Judan tournament is currently awarded a prize of ¥14,500,000 (or almost $150,000).