Gosei
The Gosei (碁聖) is the smallest of the seven big titles in Japanese professional Go. The winner's prize is ¥7,770,000 currently, an amount that is now lagging significantly behind the other big titles. It is sponsored by IBM Japan and a consortium of newspapers. All 5-dan and higher professional players of the Nihon Ki-in and Kansai Ki-in can participate.
The Gosei 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.
Due to the importance of the Gosei 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. Though of course a player must be at least 5-dan to even be allowed to enter the Gosei preliminary tournament!
Winners:
1st 1976 Kato Masao (d. Otake Hideo 3-2) 2nd 1977 Kato Masao (d. Takemiya Masaki 3-0) 3rd 1978 Otake Hideo (d. Kato Masao 3-1) 4th 1979 Cho Chikun (d. Otake Hideo 3-0) 5th 1980 Otake Hideo (d. Cho Chikun 3-1) 6th 1981 Otake Hideo (d. Kato Masao 3-1) 7th 1982 Otake Hideo (d. Cho Chikun 3-2) 8th 1983 Otake Hideo (d. Awaji Shuzo 3-2) 9th 1984 Otake Hideo (d. Kato Masao 3-1) 10th 1985 Otake Hideo (d. Kudo Norio 3-1) 11th 1986 Cho Chikun (d. Otake Hideo 3-0) 12th 1987 Kato Masao (d. Cho Chikun 3-1) 13th 1988 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Kato Masao 3-0) 14th 1989 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Imamura Toshiya 3-1) 15th 1990 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Kobayashi Satoru 3-0) 16th 1991 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Kobayashi Satoru 3-2) 17th 1992 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Kobayashi Satoru 3-1) 18th 1993 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Rin Kaiho 3-0) 19th 1994 Rin Kaiho (d. Kobayashi Koichi 3-1) 20th 1995 Kobayashi Satoru (d. Rin Kaiho 3-2) 21st 1996 Yoda Norimoto (d. Kobayashi Satoru 3-0) 22nd 1997 Yoda Norimoto (d. Yuki Satoshi 3-1) 23rd 1998 Yoda Norimoto (d. Sonoda Yuichi 3-0) 24th 1999 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Yoda Norimoto 3-2) 25th 2000 Yamashita Keigo (d. Kobayashi Koichi 3-2) 26th 2001 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Yamashita Keigo 3-2) 27th 2002 Kobayashi Koichi (d. Yuki Satoshi 3-1) 28th 2003 Yoda Norimoto (d. Kobayashi Koichi 3-2) 29th 2004 Yoda Norimoto (d. Yamada Kimio 3-1) 30th 2005 Yoda Norimoto (d. Yuki Satoshi 3-0) 31st 2006 Cho U (d. Yoda Norimoto 3-0) 32nd 2007 Cho U (d. Yokota Shigeaki 3-0) 33rd 2008 Cho U (d. Yamashita Keigo 3-1)