Kitani Minoru

Kitani Minoru (木谷実, 25 January 1909 – December 1975) was a professional, Japanese 9-dan.

Kitani is known as:

• proprietor of one of the most influential dojos in go history, the Kitani dojo
  • teacher of several top professionals, such as Ishida Yoshio, Kato Masao, Takemiya Masaki, Kobayashi Koichi, and Cho Chikun
  • as well as of top female professionals Honda Sachiko, Kusunoki Teruko, Ogawa Tomoko, Kobayashi Chizu, and of course his own daughter Kitani Reiko
• co-innovator of the New Fuseki Era with Go Seigen
• innovator of many joseki and author of important joseki dictionaries
• victorious opponent of Shusai's retirement game immortalized in the novel The Master of Go
• inductee into the 2010 Nihon Kiin Hall of Fame
• of course, a top player in his own right with unmatched reading depth.

Kitani was a student of Suzuki Tamejiro.

Table of contents Achievements Annihilating the Kiseisha Beating Honinbo Shusai in his retirement game Illness and comeback Family Style Unparalleled depth of reading Links More key pages on Sensei's Library Pictures Notes

Achievements

Kitani became a professional shodan when he was 14. He advanced one rank per year, which was remarkable in those days. When he was 4 dan, he beat 10 players in a row in the Tokyo Hibi Newspaper's New Player knockout tournament. He was nicknamed the “Prodigy” (Kaido-Maru, literally “Absolute Monster Child”).

Annihilating the Kiseisha

In 1928, Kitani won 8 games in a win and continue match playing for the Nihon Ki'in against the then-rival group Kiseisha. He had 8 wins and two draw before finally losing to Karigane Jun'ichi. Sakata Eio wrote an admiring article, “Kitani Annihilates the Kiseisha”, saying:

Even though he was playing Black in the games due to his dan rank, it was a wonderful exploit. In the 11th game against Karigane he lost, and the prodigy whirlwind died out, but it is not too much to say that Kitani by himself had made the Kiseisha look silly.^[1]

In 1934, Kitani won 10 straight best of three matches against other top players in a win and continue tournament run by Yomiuri. His opponents were all top players and the matches were ended when the supply of opponents was exhausted.

Beating Honinbo Shusai in his retirement game

In 1938, Kitani won the honour of being selected for the opponent of Meijin Honinbo Shusai in The Meijin's Retirement Game. Previously, as Meijin, Shusai had asserted the traditional right to adjourn at will. He had taken full advantage of this against Go Seigen in the Game Of The Century. Instead, Kitani insisted that the game be adjourned at set times with sealing of moves.

The time limit was 40 hours per player. Kitani 7 dan took Black without komi against Honinbo Shusai Meijin (9 dan), according to the traditional Match Handicap System. He played a steady game, content just to keep his Black advantage. He took three smallish corners, pressed White down to the third line on the left side while making a wall, and played an accurate yose, to win by 5 points, spending 34 hours 19 minutes—Shusai, at age 64, spent only 19 hours 57 minutes.

Illness and comeback

In 1954, Kitani fell quite ill, and largely withdrew from competitive play, while still an 8 dan. In 1956 he returned, winning the Saikoi (Top position; Top League above oteai) and achieved 9 dan status. In the 2nd Top Position, he defeated the title-holder Sakata Eio 3–1, then in the 3rd he defeated the challenger Shimamura Toshihiro 3–2, but lost to Sakata in the 4th by 2–3.

He never achieved the Honinbo title, but reached Challenger three times: 4th / 1947, lost to Iwamoto Kaoru 2–3; 8th / 1953 and 14th / 1959, lost to Takagawa Kaku 2–4.

In 2010, he was posthumously inducted into the Nihon Kiin Hall of Fame.

Family

His daughter, Kitani Reiko, was a professional; and his wife, Kitani Miharu, wrote a book about the Kitani dojo. Reiko married the top professional Kobayashi Koichi. Through them, Kitani was the grandfather of Kobayashi Izumi, and great-grandfather of Cho Kosumi and Cho Koharu. Reiko was the only child of the Kitanis who became a go professional. In total, they had three sons and five daughters (the second daughter died in infancy).

Style

Cho Chikun said the following of Kitani's style:

Kitani's go is the go of an idealist, of someone who stubbornly builds up his faith step by step. His go is slow-moving, but he fights with an irresistible power. When I was around 6-dan (1974), I experimented with his style, but carrying it through was beyond my strength.^[2]

Segoe Kensaku called him “the great Kitani”.

Unparalleled depth of reading

Nakayama Noriyuki wrote a chapter “Memories of Kitani” in his book The Treasure Chest Enigma (an essay originally written in 1975, a year before Kitani died). He said that Kitani possessed “boldness combined with caution”, and “My deepest impression of Kitani is of a prudent and meticulous person.” About his style:

The depth of Kitani's reading is so widely known that there is no need to go into it now. Sakata’s reading makes you winder, “How can he think up a move like that?”, but Kitani’s reading makes you wonder, “How can anyone read so far ahead.”

Nakayama continued by illustrating the difference with a Kitani (Black) challenging title holder Sakata in the 4th game of the 2nd Top Position tournament in 1957. Nakayama was game recorder. At move Black 77, Kitani read 37 moves ahead to a two-step yose ko, saw that he had more ko threats, and decided he would fight what seemed an unreasonable ko. Sakata played differently, and lost by resignation, thus losing the match 1–3. But during the post-mortem, people asked what would have the plausible first move ( hane). Kitani replied:

Ah yes, I had a bit of a look at that move. It rather seems like a yose ko.

Everyone looked blank, so Kitani demonstrated the 37-move sequence. Sakata let out a startled squeak. The reigning Honinbo Takagawa Kaku and Yamabe Toshiro, who had been watching the whole game, just looked at each other, while the other young experts fell silent. Kitani explained that with more ko threats. E.g. he could let the corner go in return for taking three pivotal stones in the centre with a strong position.

After that, Takagawa commented:

If you can’t play go without reading so far ahead, then the rest of us might as well give the game away.

Nakayama pointed out that it doesn’t mean that Takagawa, who at the time had won the Honinbo title five times, wasn’t at Kitani’s level. Rather, his strengths were different:

Takagawa has his own kind of Go, with its balance and accurate assessment of the overall position, but as he made clear, Kitani was quite unrivalled in the depth of his reading.

Links

• Biography at gobase.org
• English Wikipedia
• Japanese Wikipedia
• Nihon Kiin profile
• Go Ratings and Games
• Pieter Mioch interview with Kitani pupil Tsuchida Masamitsu 9p about the Kitani dojo

More key pages on Sensei's Library

• Kitani go first game
• Kitani dojo
• Kitani joseki

Pictures

Kitani Minoru Otake Hideo (Image credit: Foxwq.com)

Notes

[1] Kido, 1977; in: Cho Chikun, Fujisawa Shuko, Sakata Eio, Kato Masao, Takemiya, Masaki, Amazing Happenings in the Game of Go (Kido Classics Book 1), Ch. 15; Robert J. Terry, Kindle Edition. [1] Go World Iss. 23, p. 26.