Tengen - the title

    Keywords: Tournament

Corresponding Titles
China: Tianyuan 天元 (tian1 yuan2)
Japan: Tengen 天元 (tengen)
Korea: Chunwon 천원
Taiwan: Taiwan Tianyuan

Tengen is the fifth of the seven big titles in Japanese professional Go. The winner's prize is ¥13,000,000 currently, sponsored by six local newspapers. [ext] Tournament website. All professional players of the Nihon Ki-in and Kansai Ki-in can participate. Tengen ("origin of heaven") is also a Japanese go term used to designate the central point of the go board.

The Tengen shares most of its structure with the other big titles in Japan - the winner of a preliminary tournament (in this case a single knockout tournament) plays a best of five match against the previous year's title holder. This has been the case since the 6th Tengen in 1980. Prior to that it was a match between the final two players from the knockout tournament, making it much more difficult to be a repeat title holder (as Kato Masao was able to achieve in 1978 and 1979).

Due to the importance of the Tengen as one of the "big seven" titles in Japan, there are several paths of automatic rank advancement through it in the Nihon Ki-in new promotion system. Challenging for the title warrants a promotion to 7-dan, actually winning the title promotes to 8-dan, and finally winning the title twice gives an immediate 9-dan promotion.

Prior to 2002, the winner of the title played against the Chinese Tianyuan in the Tengen-Tianyuan match.

Winners and Runners-up

The title match usually starts in October.

Winners and defeated finalists
Ed. Year Winner Res. Runner-up
1st 1975 Fujisawa Hideyuki 3-1 Ohira Shuzo
2nd 1976 Kobayashi Koichi 3-1 Sugiuchi Masao
3rd 1977 Shimamura Toshihiro 3-1 Sonoda Yuichi
4th 1978 Kato Masao 3-1 Fujisawa Hideyuki
5th 1979 Kato Masao 3-0 Kataoka Satoshi
6th 1980 Kato Masao 3-0 Yamabe Toshiro [1]
7th 1981 Kato Masao 3-2 Kobayashi Koichi
8th 1982 Kataoka Satoshi 3-2 Kato Masao
9th 1983 Kataoka Satoshi 3-1 Awaji Shuzo
10th 1984 Ishida Yoshio 3-1 Kataoka Satoshi
11th 1985 Kobayashi Koichi 3-0 Ishida Yoshio
12th 1986 Kobayashi Koichi 3-1 Sonoda Yuichi
13th 1987 Cho Chikun 3-2 Kobayashi Koichi
14th 1988 Cho Chikun 3-2 Sonoda Yuichi
15th 1989 Rin Kaiho 3-2 Cho Chikun
16th 1990 Rin Kaiho 3-1 Kobayashi Koichi
17th 1991 Rin Kaiho 3-1 Kato Masao
18th 1992 Rin Kaiho 3-1 Yamashiro Hiroshi
19th 1993 Rin Kaiho 3-1 Kataoka Satoshi
20th 1994 Ryu Shikun 3-1 Rin Kaiho
21st 1995 Ryu Shikun 3-2 Kobayashi Koichi
22nd 1996 Ryu Shikun 3-2 Rin Kaiho
23rd 1997 Kudo Norio 3-1 Ryu Shikun
24th 1998 Kobayashi Koichi 3-2 Kudo Norio
25th 1999 Kobayashi Koichi 3-0 Kudo Norio
26th 2000 Ryu Shikun 3-0 Kobayashi Koichi
27th 2001 Hane Naoki 3-1 Ryu Shikun
28th 2002 Hane Naoki 3-0 Cho Sonjin
29th 2003 Hane Naoki 3-2 Yamashita Keigo
30th 2004 Yamashita Keigo 3-0 Hane Naoki
31st 2005 Kono Rin 3-2 Yamashita Keigo
32nd 2006 Kono Rin 3-1 Yamashita Keigo
33rd 2007 Kono Rin 3-1 Yamashita Keigo
34th 2008 Cho U 3-0 Kono Rin
35th 2009 Yamashita Keigo 3-2 Cho U
36th 2010 Yuki Satoshi 3-0 Yamashita Keigo
37th 2011 Iyama Yuta 3-0 Yuki Satoshi
38th 2012 Iyama Yuta 3-0 Kono Rin
39th 2013 Iyama Yuta 3-0 Akiyama Jiro
40th 2014 Takao Shinji 3-2 Iyama Yuta
41st 2015 Iyama Yuta 3-0 Takao Shinji
42nd 2016 Iyama Yuta 3-1 Ichiriki Ryo
43rd 2017 Iyama Yuta 3-0 Ichiriki Ryo
44th 2018 Iyama Yuta 3-2 Yamashita Keigo
45th 2019 Iyama Yuta 3-2 Kyo Kagen
46th 2020 Ichiriki Ryo 3-2 Iyama Yuta
47th 2021 Seki Kotaro 3-1 Ichiriki Ryo
48th 2022 Seki Kotaro 3-2 Ida Atsushi
49th 2023 Ichiriki Ryo 3-1 Seki Kotaro

[1] Prior to the 6th Tengen in 1980, the title holder was required to play in the preliminary matches under the same conditions as all other participants. Therefore, repeating as Tengen was significantly more difficult before the 6th Tengen.


Tengen - the title last edited by Jono64a on January 4, 2024 - 01:06
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