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Blood Vomiting Game
Keywords: Culture & History
This page is for discussion and enjoyment of one of the most famous games of Edo-period Go, the Blood Vomiting Game (also known as the Blood Coughing Game). Eventually I'd like to add more of the history and folklore about this game, but for now here is a partial game record containing the four moves that this game is famous for: the secret taisha variation developed by the Inoue house, and the three moves that were supposedly brought to Jowa by ghosts, allowing him to grind Intetsu's lead (and life!) away. White is Honinbo Jowa 9-dan, the Meijin Godokoro. Black is Akaboshi Intetsu 7-dan, the pupil of Gennan Inseki 8-dan. (These game records are from memory, so if there is an error, please make note of it! --mattn)
White 1 is an over-extension that is typical of Jowa's violent style. The Inoue school had developed this taisha variation starting with Black 6 secretly. It allows Black to attack White's floating center group and absorb the two white stones on the left side at the same time.
Moves 5 and 7 are the first two moves found by Jowa's ghost. According to Invincible they allow White to omit a direct answer to 4, because of aji at a.
White 7 is the third ghost move. It is an example of a "bad shape/good move", and eventually allows Jowa to launch a difficult splitting attack that results in Black's resignation. As the stones were being cleared from the board, Akaboshi Intetsu keeled over, coughing up blood. As the four-day long game progressed and Jowa slowly clawed his way into the lead, Akaboshi's health had been steadily declining. Within a few weeks, he was dead. Additions to make: More on the stories, myths and political intrigue around the game, link to a game record, discussion of particular moves. This is a copy of the living page "Blood Vomiting Game" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |