Aoki to challenge for Women's Meijin
The play-off to decide the challenger for the 14th Women's Meijin title was held in Yugen, the top playing room at the Nihon Ki-in, on 16 January. Playing white, Aoki Kikuyo, current holder of the Women's Strongest Player title, defeated Kato Tomoko by resignation. She will now attempt to regain the title from Kobayashi Izumi, Women's Meijin & Honinbo, who took the title from her 2-0 last February. This will be the third successive clash between these two, as Kobayashi challenged unsuccessfully for this title in 2000.
The title match will be played in February. Whoever wins will have two titles, so she can claim to be the top woman player in Japan.

Japan wins Agon Kiriyama Cup Play-off
Japan does not enjoy much success on the international scene these days, but one international title Japan does do well in is the annual play-off between the winners of the Japanese and Chinese Agon Kiriyama Cups, which is sponsored by Agon, a Japanese Buddhist sect with its headquarters in Kyoto.
The third annual play-off was held in Beijing on 11 January, and, like the previous two, was won by Japan. Actually, the Japanese representative, for the second time in a row, was Cho Sonjin 9-dan, who was born in Korea. Some fans may have dismissed Cho as a flash in the pan when he lost the Honinbo title after a reign of just one year, but since then he has maintained a place near the top of the Japanese go world and has enjoyed consistently good results. In the 2nd play-off, held in December 2000, he defeated Zhou Heyang 8-dan to score his first significant victory in the international area; he more than matched that performance in the third play-off by disposing of his opponent, Liu Jing 8-dan, in just 83 moves. Poor Liu had an appalling lapse of concentration in the middle of a capturing race and played a completely useless move; he had to resign on the spot after Black's next move. He had beaten Ma Xiaochun to win the Chinese version of the title, so he is obviously a better play than this performance would indicate.
Just for the record, Kobayashi Koichi was the player who got Japan off to a good start in the 1st play-off, when he beat Ma.

Rin and Cho Chikun share Meijin league lead
There was a lot of activity in the 27th Meijin league last week, with three important games being played. The results:

Cho Chikun Oza (W) beat Kato Masao 9-dan by 7.5 points.
Rin Kaiho 9-dan (B) beat Hikosaka Naoto 9-dan by resignation.
O Meien Honinbo (W) beat O Rissei Kisei by 2.5 points.

Cho Chikun and Rin are now both on 2-0. Two other players have not lost a game, Ryu Shikun 7-dan and Yamashita Keigo 7-dan, both on 1-0. The two Os are on 1-1, followed by Kato and Hikosaka on 0-2. Since the league has eight rounds, no one is out of the running yet.
Incidentally, all the players who went to London for the first Kisei game and who played last week just a couple of days after the return flight suffered losses: O Rissei, Ryu Shikun (to Otake in the final qualifying tournament for the Fujitsu Cup), and Kato Masao (the newspaper commentator). On the NHK satellite channel go and shogi program, Kobayashi Chizu pointed an accusing finger at jet lag.

Honinbo league
The second game this year in the 57th Honinbo league was played on 17 January, but the result did not affect the lead. The game was between Cho U 7-dan, last year's challenger, and Yamada Kimio 8-dan; taking white, Cho beat Yamada by 3.5 points. That put both players on 2-2, one loss more than Cho Sonjin, Cho Chikun, and Kato Masao.

Westerners at the Nihon Ki-in
Only one Western professional had a game last week. That was Catalin Taranu 5-dan, who lost to Nakane Naoyuki 7-dan (W) by resignation in the 2nd preliminary round of the Meijin tournament.

Kido Prizes for 2001
Although the magazine 'Kido' is defunct, the Kido Prizes are alive and kicking. The prize winners for 2001 were decided by a group of go writers representing all the media involved in sponsoring go on the 17th.

Most outstanding player: O Rissei Kisei & Judan (for half the year O held three titles concurrently, the third being the Oza) (second year in a row for O)
Outstanding players: Hane Naoki, for winning the Tengen title and setting two new records (see below) & Rin Kaiho (challenged for the Meijin title at the age of 59)
New Star prize: Mizokami Tomochika 7-dan (played in the Kisei league, won the NEC New Stars title, won 45 games)
Best woman player: Kobayashi Izumi, Women's Meijin & Honinbo
International prize: no deserving candidate, so not awarded (a reasonable decision, in our opinion, as Japan had one of its worst years in international go)
Most wins: Hane Naoki (63, a new record)
Most games played: Hane Naoki (88, a new record)
Best winning percentage: Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan: 79.55% (35-9)
Most successive wins: Takao Shinji 7-dan (18)

2001 statistics
Below is a review of some statistics for professional go in Japan last year. It's interesting to see the correlation between the prize-money list and the other lists.

Most prize money won in 2001
For the second year in a row, the top prize-money winner failed to earn 100 million yen, a mark that had more or less become the 'norm' in the 90s' (it was achieved six times between 1990 and 1999). Perhaps most notable is the appearance of two women players in the top 20 -- only one (Aoki) made it last year. Another difference: all the top 20 made eight figures last year.

1. O Rissei: ･84,835,670
2. Cho Chikun: 67,412,400
3. Yoda Norimoto: 45,671,690
4. O Meien: 45,205,400
5. Cho Sonjin: 39,282,000
6. Hane Naoki: 35,679,266
7. Kato Masao: 29,227,330
8. Kobayashi Koichi: 28,002,070
9. Cho U: 26,985,000
10. Ryu Shikun: 25,766,540
11. Rin Kaiho: 24,363,600
12. Yamashita Keigo: 18,667,770
13. Mizokami Tomochika: 17,290,618
14. Kobayashi Izumi: 15,074,557
15. Yamada Kimio: 12,919,960
16. Ishida Yoshio: 11,102,000
17. Komatsu Hideki: 10,789,400
18. Hikosaka Naoto: 9,431,080
19. Mimura Tomoyasu: 9,429,800
20. Aoki Kikuyo: 9,077,140

Most games won
Below we give the top 25 place in this list, which actually covers 27 players. As reported before, Hane set a new record for most wins in one year. Another point of interest is the appearance in the list of Kobayashi Izumi: a woman player doesn't often make the top ten. Also, it's unusual to see Cho Chikun so close to the top; the reason, of course, is that the average strength of his opponents is lower than usual, now that he has been, involuntarily, freed from the burden of playing a large number of title-match games.

1. Hane Naoki Tengen: 63 wins, 25 losses
2. Cho U 7-dan: 52-24
3. Yamashita Keigo 7-dan: 50-19
4. Cho Chikun Oza: 47-20
5. Kono Rin 6-dan: 46-15
6. Mizokami Tomochika 7-dan: 45-21
7. Takao Shinji 7-dan: 44-12-1 jigo
8. Kim Shujun 6-dan: 43-17
9. So Yokoku 7-dan: 41-15; Kobayashi Izumi Women's Honinbo: 41-18
11. Matsumoto Takehisa 5-dan: 40-14
12. Kato Atsushi 8-dan: 39-14
13. Yamada Kimio 8-dan: 38-15
14. Kato Masao 9-dan: 37-18
15. Cho Riyu 5-dan: 36-16
16. Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan: 35-9; Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan: 35-11
18. Yo Kagen 9-dan: 34-12; Akiyama Jiro 7-dan: 34-13; Hikosaka Naoto 9-dan, Nakamura Shinya 8-dan: 34-14; O Rissei kisei: 34-25
23. Kobayashi Koichi Gosei: 33-20
24. Nakano Hironari 9-dan: 32-17
25. Ishii Kunio 9-dan: 31-11; Takanashi Seiken 7-dan: 31-13; Arimura Hiroshi 8-dan: 31-16

Best winning percentage
1. Mimura Tomoyasu 9-dan: 79.55% (35-9)
2. Takao Shinji 7-dan: 78.07% (44-12-1 jigo)
3. Kataoka Satoshi 9-dan: 76.09% (35-11)
4. Kono Rin 6-dan: 75.41% (46-15)
5. Nakaonoda Tomomi 8-dan: 75% (30-10)
6. Obuchi Morito 9-dan (20-7), Matsumoto Takehisa 5-dan (40-14): 74.07%
8. Yo Kagen 9-dan: 73.91% (34-12)
9. Ishii Kunio 9-dan: 73.81% (31-11)
10. Kato Atsushi 8-dan: 73.58% (39-14)

Most successive wins
1. Takao Shinji: 18
2. Yamashita Keigo: 14
3. Yo Kagen, Takanashi Seiken: 13
5. Cho U: 12