Ogawa Tomoko

    Keywords: People

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/images/player/000198.jpg
Ogawa Tomoko's Nihon Ki-in photograph

Ogawa Tomoko (小川 誠子, born 1 April 1951, died 15 November 2019) was a Japanese 6-dan professional Go player. As is customary, she was promoted by one dan after death, so she is recorded as a 7-dan professional.

Early career

Ogawa was born in Kanagawa and at age 14 she won the Ladies' Amateur Honinbo title. After that she became an insei of Kitani Minoru and turned professional in 1970.

Titles

Ogawa won the Female Honinbo tournament in 1986, beating the title-holder Kusunoki Teruko. However, Ogawa lost the title back to Kusunoki the following year, and was runner-up to her in the next two finals.

Ogawa also won the All-Japan Women's Championship twice, in 1979 and 1980, beating Kobayashi Chizu both times. She was runner-up twice: in 1978 (losing to Kobayashi Chizu) and 1981 (losing to Honda Sachiko). In 1987, Ogawa beat Sugiuchi Kazuko to win the Women's Kakusei. But she lost it to Miyazaki Shimako the next year, and was runner up to Kobayashi Chizu the year after that.

Ogawa was also runner up in the Women's Meijin three times, and once in the old Female Meijin in 1973. At the age of 51, in 2002, she was runner up to Chinen Kaori in the Female Kisei. In 2008, she became the second female to score 500 professional wins.

Go writing and presentation

Ogawa Tomoko is best known to the English speaking go world by the book on endgame theory she co-authored with James Davies ("The Endgame"). In Japan, she was host of the NHK Go program?, and very popular because of her cheerful personality. She was also in charge of the Tsumego series for 29 years in Sports Hochi?.

Personal life

Ogawa married actor Yamamoto Kei (1940–2022) in 1977, and their daughter was born in 1986 just before she won the Female Honinbo tournament.

In 2014, Ogawa developed colorectal cancer, and surgery in 2016 seemed to be successful. But she died suddenly in hospital in 2019, aged only 68. ([ext] https://www.sankei.com/article/20200217-LT25GINJXVJ6BMZAWGOEWSNIDE/ "Play Go even in heaven..." Farewell party for Ogawa Tomoko, 6th Dan] (in Japanese. Google translate sometimes translates Ogawa-sensei's given name 誠子 as Seiko, and Makoto would be another rendering)) [ext] https://hochi.news/articles/20191115-OHT1T50338.html?page=1 (Go player Ogawa Tomoko passes away suddenly, in charge of Tsumego series for 29 years in Sports Hochi (In Japanese).

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Ogawa Tomoko, Japanese Wikipedia article: [ext] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E5%B7%9D%E8%AA%A0%E5%AD%90


Ogawa Tomoko last edited by 2603:9001:6e0b:2694 on December 19, 2023 - 02:43
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