53rd Honinbo title

Preliminary finals

We give the finals of the Last preliminary tournament.

date	black	white	result	#mv	sgf
1997-07-10	Chino Tadahiko	O Rissei	W+1.5	284	sgf
1997-07-31	Yamada Kimio	Honda Kunihisa	B+R	179	sgf
1997-08-07	Oya Koichi	O Meien	W+R	158	sgf
1997-08-28	Takemiya Masaki	Kobayashi Satoru	W+2.5	188	sgf

League

In the first column the white player, on the top row the black player.

#	player	result	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1.	Kato Masao	2-5		B+3.5		B+R		W+R		W+R
2.	Ryu Shikun	3-4			B+R		B+2.5		W+R
3.	Hikosaka Naoto	4-3	W+R			W+3.5		B+R		B+R
4.	Cho Sonjin	1-6		B+R			B+R		B+R
5.	Kobayashi Satoru	4-3	W+R		B+R			B+R		B+R
6.	O Rissei	5-2		W+1.5		W+R			B+R
7.	O Meien	5-2	W+5.5		W+R		B+0.5			W+R
8.	Yamada Kimio	4-3		W+R		W+7.5		B+3.5

Demotion Playoff

The bottom four players are demoted: Cho Sonjin, Kato Masao, Ryu Shikun and one more. Yamada Kimio and Kobayashi Satoru played a playoff lost by Yamada Kimio.

date	black	white	result	#mv	sgf
1998-04-06	Yamada Kimio	Kobayashi Satoru	W+6.5

Challenger Playoff

Both O Rissei and O Meien had 5 wins. They played a challenger playoff won by O Rissei.

date	black	white	result	#mv	sgf
1998-04-06	O Rissei	O Meien	B+1.5	301	sgf

53rd Honinbo Title

date	black	white	result	#mv	sgf
1998-05-21,22	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	B+R	167	sgf
1998-06-01,02	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	W+R	148	sgf
1998-06-11,12	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	W+R	162	sgf
1998-06-22,23	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	W+R	166	sgf
1998-06-29,30	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	W+R	172	sgf
1998-07-13,14	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	W+R	154	sgf

Cho Chikun won 4-2.