Kobayashi Satoru

Kobayashi Satoru (小林 覚, born 5 April 1959) is a Japanese 9-dan professional Go player.

Pupil of Kitani Minoru. One of four children, three of whom are professional players: Kobayashi Chizu Kobayashi Satoru and Kobayashi Kenji. He had won 900 professional games more and 1000 games on 2011-12-02 more.

The three Mukai sisters, Mimura Kaori, Nagashima Kozue, and Mukai Chiaki, are his first cousins once removed (their mother is his cousin; his father and the Mukais’ maternal grandmother were brothers).

In 1995 he won the Kisei and Gosei titles, the only time he has won any of the seven big Japanese titles. He also won the 3rd IBM Hayago Open Championship in 1990, the NHK Cup in 1995, the Ryusei in 1996, the Agon Cup in 1998 and was Challenger / Runner up in many other titles, most notably in 1997 the Tong Yang Securities Cup and the Samsung Cup.

In the 2013-07-17, he won his tenth title, the 3rd Igo Masters Cup, beating Ishii Kunio

2001 Suspension

The 3rd Chunlan Cup was the scene of the infamous incident where Kobayashi accidentally injured Ryu Shikun during a drinking session in Taizhou, China. The details what happened described in the japanese wikipedia page (as of 21st February 2024) of Kobayashi say that Kobayashi hit the cheek of Ryu with a hand holding a glass breaking the glass and causing a wound to Ryu's cheek. The japanese wikipedia page also says that it was not a quarrel.

The English version of Kobayashi's Wikipedia page as of the same 21st of February 2024 says that it happened in a bar and Kobayashi's gesture caused his hand holding a brandy glass to break and cause the wound. The English Wikipedia page calls Ryu as Kobayashi's opponent. While that may be true if they both had been winning enough games to cause Japanese representatives to be drawn against each other, the incident happened only after victorious first round games by both players earlier that day. At this point they probably considered themselves more like teammates.

Two days later they both ended up losing their 2nd round game and getting eliminated from the tournament. The Nihon Ki-in moved swiftly and suspended Kobayashi Satoru from all professional Go activities for one year. That suspension was later commuted to eight months, and he was allowed to return to active play in September 2001. The Japanese Wikipedia says that because "reconciliation was reached" (和解が成立した) between Kobayashi and Ryu, the suspension was lifted which may or may not imply that at some point they were not in good terms.

Chairman

He is the chairman of Nihon Kiin from April 2019 to the present.

Personal life

In 1981, Kobayashi married the actress Muraji Hiromi (1959– ), who was his classmate at Horikoshi High School. Their daughter Sayaka married Ko Reibun 7p, eldest son of the since divorced Nie Weiping 9p and Kong Xiangming 8p.