Pechin Hamahiga

Pechin Hamahiga (or Peichin Hamahika in Gobase, or Pēchin Hamahika ) was a top Ryukyuan? (now Okinawa Prefecture) player of the late seventeenth century, who played Dosaku on four stones twice in 1682 (one win and one loss).

Pēchin is actually a title, roughly equivalent to the Samurai class in mainland Japan. A Pēchin had military duties as well as local law-keeping and administrative responsibilities. It is considered to be a higher rank than Satonushi, as per his successor as the Ryukyu Island’s leading player, Yaro no Satonushi (Satonushi of Yaro).

Hamahiga might be a reference to the small Hamahiga Island (Hamahiga-jima) in the Okinawa region, with two villages called Hama and Higa.

Taking 4 stones against Honinbo Dosaku

White is Honinbo Dosaku, Meijin. Black is Pechin Hamahiga. The game is known for a trap set up by Dosaku involving a nose tesuji against two groups. In the basic joseki dictionary of Ishida Yoshio, there is a reference to this game, which Ishida considers as the first ever official international go game.

1-10  

In fact in the actual game Black played at a and avoided the trap. The diagram below is often mistakenly given as the actual game continuation; it is not.

11-17  

• http://gobase.org/replay/?gam=/games/japan/misc/disks/dosaku/dosak23.sgf
• Basic Instinct Counterexample for the same sequence.
• The above game is also included in the chapter "Wonderful Wedges" of Weird and Wonderful - Volume 1 - Extraordinary Moves by Professional Go Players, along with two examples of the symmetry-exploiting wedge from professional play.