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. Nihon Ki-in professionals must be 5 dan or higher to participate, while lower ranked players from the Kansai Ki-in may compete.
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!
Hyperpapeterie: Temporary comment to be removed when issue is resolved. Is it really true that only 5dan players can compete? The tournament tables at http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/news.html show 1 or 2 dans in the tournament.
valerio: Only 5 dan and up from the Nihon Kiin can compete view table. Kim Byeongjun, Tamura Chiaki and Kubota Masaru are players from Kansai kiin.
Hyperpapeterie: Also Yu Zhengqi. Interesting difference between organizations. Do you know who is responsible for the 5dan rule? Is it the tournament organizers or the professional associations?
valerio: my English is very poor (terrible!!!) and for my is very difficult to explain this problem. 1991 Go Players Almanac shows tournament rules very well.