23rd Meijin title

Newcomers

The lowest three players from the previous year are demoted, and entrance matches determine which three new players enter the League.

game	date	black	white	result	sgf
Qualification final	1997-11-06	Hikosaka Naoto	Rin Kaiho	W+R	sgf
Qualification final	1997-11-06	Yamada Kimio	Tono Hiroaki	W+3.5	sgf
Qualification final	1997-11-13	Kobayashi Satoru	Yoda Norimoto	W+2.5	sgf

League

Results (in the first column the white player, on the top row the black player). The ordering of the first six players is according to their results in the previous year. The last three are the winners of the entrance matches.

#	player	result	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1.	Kobayashi Koichi	4-4			B+1.5		B+3.5		B+1.5		W+1.5
2.	O Rissei	8-0	W+13.5			W+R		W+1.5		W+R
3.	Kataoka Satoshi	2-6		B+R			B+9.5		B+1.5		B+3.5
4.	Ryu Shikun	3-5	B+R		B+2.5			B+R		W+15.5
5.	Takemiya Masaki	3-5		B+0.5		B+1.5			W+1.5		B+R
6.	Kato Masao	5-3	B+2.5		W+2.5		W+6.5			W+F
7.	Yoda Norimoto	5-3		B+3.5		W+R		W+0.5			W+2.5
8.	Rin Kaiho	3-5	B+R		W+1.5		W+R		W+R
9.	Tono Hiroaki	3-5		B+4.5		B+R		B+R		W+9.5

Kataoka Satoshi, Tono Hiroaki, and Rin Kaiho are demoted.

23rd Meijin Title

game	date	black	white	result	sgf
1	1998-09-09,10	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	B+R	sgf
2	1998-09-23,24	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	B+R	sgf
3	1998-10-01	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	W+R	sgf
4	1998-10-14,15	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	Void	sgf
5	1998-10-21,22	O Rissei	Cho Chikun	B+3.5	sgf
6	1998-11-04,05	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	B+3.5	sgf
7	1998-11-11,12	Cho Chikun	O Rissei	B+1.5	sgf

Cho Chikun won 4-2. The 4th game was void due to a triple ko.