Four Houses

These were the main four houses (four go schools) in Japan during the Edo Period:

• Honinbo 本因坊 (continues as tournament title). 坊門 (boumon) means the house and its pupils.
• Hayashi 林 and 林門 (rinmon)
• Inoue 井上 and 井門 (seimon)
• Yasui 安井 and 安門 (anmon).

There were three minor houses too:

• Sakaguchi, associated with Yasui
• Hattori, with Inoue
• Mizutani, with Honinbo.

The organisation of the four houses of go in the Edo period conforms quite closely to the iemoto system that is found across the whole range of Japanese traditional arts at that time (and with some modification into the Meiji era and later).