The 1st Honinbo title match

Shusai, it will be remembered, had bequeathed the title of Hon'inbo to the Nihon Ki-in to be awarded in a tournament. When Shusai retired, preparations began for the first Hon'inbo tournament, but there were a number of problems to be overcome first. The tournament was to be open to all Nihon Ki-in players of 4 dan and up, but there was great resistance to the idea of players of different ranks playing even games - this had been unheard of in the past. As a compromise, a long series of preliminary tournaments were held in order to minimise the number of even games between differently ranked players - thus there was a 4 dan tournament, the winner of which played in a 5 dan tournament; the winner of this joined a complicated two-stage 6 dan tournament, from which four players emerged to join the four 7 dans in a final eliminator (there were no 8 dans at this time, and of course no 9 dan), to decide the two players who would play in the title match. (Andrew Grant, Four Hundred Years of Japanese Go)

Preliminaries

The 4-dan section consisted of Mukai Kazuo, Takahashi Shigeyuki, Nakagawa Arata, Nakamura Yutaro, Takagawa Kaku and Tanaka Fujio. The final Mukai Kazuo vs. Takahashi Shigeyuki (B+R) was won by Mukai Kazuo (4d), who progressed to the 5-dan section.

Apart from Mukai Kazuo, the 5-dan section consisted of Tsuyamori Itsuro, Shinohara Masami, Murashima Yoshinori, Fujisawa Kuranosuke, Hasegawa Akira, Yamaguchi Sanseki, Yoshida Misako and Hosokawa Senjin. The two players Shinohara Masami and Murashima Yoshinori progressed to the 6-dan section.

Apart from these two, the 6-dan section consisted of Iwamoto Kaoru, Onoda Chiyotaro, Kubomatsu Katsukiyo, Kimura Hirozo, Maeda Nobuaki, Hayashi Yutaro, Sekiyama Riichi, Hashimoto Utaro and Go Seigen. The four 6-dans Go Seigen, Maeda Nobuaki, Sekiyama Riichi and Kubomatsu Katsukiyo progressed to the next stage. (In fact Go Seigen was promoted to 7-dan halfway.)

The mini-tournaments

#	player	pts
1	Sekiyama Riichi (6d)	16
2	Kato Shin (7d)	15
3	Go Seigen (6d,7d)	14
4	Maeda Nobuaki (6d)	13
5	Kitani Minoru (7d)	9
6	Segoe Kensaku (7d)	8
7	Kubomatsu Katsukiyo (6d)	7
8	Suzuki Tamejiro (7d)	6

The points here were awarded as follows: places 1, 2, 3, 4 in each mini-tournament gave 6, 5, 4, 3 points, respectively, while loss in the first round gave 1 point.

Thanks to this points system, Go Seigen, with 6 wins in 8 games, ended below Sekiyama Riichi, with 6 wins in 9 games, and Kato Shin, with 5 wins in 9 games.

The first mini-tournament

1st mini-tournament
Suzuki Tamejiro	Go Seigen W+8.5 1940	Go Seigen B+R 1940-01-18	Go Seigen B+7.5 1940
Go Seigen
Kubomatsu Katsukiyo	Maeda Nobuaki W+4.5 1940-01
Maeda Nobuaki
Segoe Kensaku	Sekiyama Riichi W+0.5 1940-01	Sekiyama Riichi B+3.5 1940-02
Sekiyama Riichi
Kato Shin	Kato Shin B+2.5 1940-01-21
Kitani Minoru

The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Kato Shin (B+11.5).

Standings: 1. Go Seigen, 6 pts; 2. Sekiyama, 5 pts; 3. Kato, 4 pts; 4. Maeda, 3 pts; 5-8. Kitani, Segoe, Kubomatsu, Suzuki, 1 pt each.

The second mini-tournament

2nd mini-tournament
Kubomatsu Katsukiyo	Kato Shin W+2.5 1940-05	Kato Shin B+R 1940-08	Sekiyama Riichi W+1.5 1940-09
Kato Shin
Segoe Kensaku	Suzuki Tamejiro W+0.5 1940-05
Suzuki Tamejiro
Maeda Nobuaki	Maeda Nobuaki B+3.5 1940	Sekiyama Riichi W+2.5 1940-07
Go Seigen
Kitani Minoru	Sekiyama Riichi W+1.5 1940-06-25,07-07
Sekiyama Riichi

The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Maeda Nobuaki (W+R).

Standings: 1. Sekiyama, 11 pts; 2. Kato, 9 pts; 3-4. Go Seigen, Maeda, 7 pts each; 5. Suzuki, 4 pts; 6-8. Kitani, Segoe, Kubomatsu 2 pts each.

The third mini-tournament

3rd mini-tournament
Suzuki Tamejiro	Kitani Minoru W+R 1940-10-16,30	Kitani Minoru B+R 1940-11-14,28	Kitani Minoru B+R 1940-11-13,27
Kitani Minoru
Kato Shin	Kato Shin B+0.5 1940
Go Seigen
Maeda Nobuaki	Maeda Nobuaki B+R 1940	Maeda Nobuaki B+2.5 1940
Segoe Kensaku
Kubomatsu Katsukiyo	Kubomatsu Katsukiyo B+R 1940
Sekiyama Riichi

The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Kubomatsu Katsukiyo (W+R).

Standings: 1. Sekiyama, Kato, Maeda, 12 pts each; 4-5. Go Seigen, Kitani, 8 pts each; 6. Kubomatsu, 6 pts; 7. Suzuki, 5 pts; 8. Segoe, 3 pts.

The fourth mini-tournament

4th mini-tournament
Sekiyama Riichi	Sekiyama Riichi B+2.5 1941	Go Seigen W+1.5 1941	Go Seigen B+R 1941
Maeda Nobuaki
Go Seigen	Go Seigen B+R 1941
Kitani Minoru
Suzuki Tamejiro	Kato Shin W+R 1941	Segoe Kensaku W+2.5 1941
Kato Shin
Kubomatsu Katsukiyo	Segoe Kensaku W+R 1941
Segoe Kensaku

The playoff for the 3rd/4th place was won by Sekiyama Riichi (B+R)

Result: 1. Sekiyama, 16 pts; 2. Kato, 15 pts; 3. Go Seigen, 14 pts; 4. Maeda, 13 pts; 5. Kitani, 9 pts; 6. Segoe, 8 pts; 7. Kubomatsu, 7 pts; 8. Suzuki, 6 pts.

1st Honinbo Title

As Honinbo, Sekiyama took the name Honinbo Risen.