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< The final >
The final of the Professional Pair Go Championship 2012, in which 16 top female and 16 top male Japanese professionals competed, was held on Saturday, 24 March. It had been arranged for the final to be telecast as a special program on the Igo & Shogi Channel on Sunday, 1 April, so the final was filmed at the Ryusei Studio in Ichigaya, Tokyo.
The final matched the defending champions, the team of Hsieh Yi Min, Women's Honinbo and Meijin, and Wang Ming Wan 9-dan, and the team of Yukari Yoshihara 5-dan and Satoshi Yuki 9-dan. The team of Hsieh and Wang had already proven its strength, but Yoshihara and Wang had also experienced victory. Whether it was because the women players were strong or because the male players skilfully guided them, in the end two pairs with a talent for Pair Go ended up making the final.
Ms. Hiroko Taki, Director and Secretary General of the Japan Pair Go Association, gave a speech, in which she commented: 'I am looking forward to being shown a marvelous game of Pair Go.' The final then got under way.
< Beginning of the Game >
The pair of Yoshihara 5-dan and Yuki 9-dan had black. Yoshihara is known for her well-balanced style. Yuki has a severe style oriented towards fighting, but in Pair Go games he plays flexibly, fitting in with his partner. Everyone knows that Yoshihara is considerate towards those around her, but actually Yuki is generally a mild person who is universally liked. This personality of his probably contributes to his success at Pair Go.
Hsieh is winning everything in the women's tournaments; she has a fierce fighting style. When she has the lead, she immediately sets out to crush the opponent, and when she's behind, she keeps on fighting, aiming at an upset. She studies with Wang at study groups; like him, she comes from Taiwan and she understands his style and his personality well. He was originally a power player, so their way of thinking about Go may be similar. Wang always says: 'I rely on Hsieh. I just follow her.' He is probably not just flattering her.
The commentator on the final was the 24th Honinbo Shuho (Yoshio Ishida 9-dan), assisted by Tomoko Ogawa 6-dan. In the preceding rounds of the tournament, held in January, Ogawa was a player, so Kaori Aoba 4-dan acted as the assistant commentator. Ishida joked, 'Isn't it Aoba today?' This made Ogawa all the more determined to do a good job. She and Ishida are both Kitani 9-dan disciples, so this kind of joking acts as a stimulus. She pretended to glare at Ishida, but it came out as a smile.
Ishida 9-dan expressed his admiration for the rise in the level of women's go. He said that it's not necessarily true that the male player is leading the female player. The final was a high-level game: after fierce fighting, it became close, and it was just as if they were playing one on one.
As expected, the game was one fight after another. In the opening, Wang 9-dan unveiled an unusual move that is his forte, and Hsieh, Women's Honinbo and Meijin, went along with the kind of development he wanted. On the way, the Yoshihara / Yuki pair played cleverly, and everyone thought that they had the lead. However, this was a misreading that led people to go astray in their positional judgement.
The Hsieh / Wang team went all out in the middle game, and they made a fairly good recovery. According to Ishida 9-dan , the game looked like becoming a half-pointer. When they counted in the end, Hsieh, Women's Honinbo and Meijin, and Wang 9-dan had a win by half a point, which showed how accurate Ishida 's positional judgement was. Last year, also, they won the final by half a point. They won two successive finals by a total of one point, so they were favoured by luck.
In the game review, Wang 9-dan kept saying, 'I thought we were ahead.' Hsieh, Women's Honinbo and Meijin, nodded in agreement, so it seems that this team was aware they had pulled off an upset. However, Yoshihara 5-dan said: 'Actually I didn't think we were losing by half a point.' She was crestfallen at the upset. Yuki 9-dan said: 'I thought we were ten points ahead on the board. I'm more shocked at my bad counting than at losing.' He was disgusted with himself. When you have a big lead during a game, it's easy to become slack with your positional judgement.
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