Up Yomiuri Next

1st Meijin title

Tournament setup

The Meijin tournament is open to Nihon Ki-in and Kansai Ki-in players. A nine-player league decides the challenger each year. Every year, the three lowest-ranked players in the league drop out. Entrance into the league is decided by three preliminaries. The first is between 1-4 dans (6 winners: 4 Nihon ki-in and 2 Kansai ki-in). The second is between 5-9 dans and the six winners and yields some 30 winners. The third is a knock-out tournament between these winners and the 3 people who dropped from the league, and yields 3 winners, who enter the league.

Komi is 5; since 1977 5.5; since 2003 6.5. The time limit is 8 hours each in the title matches and 5 hours in the league and preliminaries. Byo-yomi is 1 minute per move.

Newcomers

The lowest three players from the previous year are demoted, and entrance matches determine which three new players enter the League.

game date black white result sgf
Qualification final 1976-02-17 Kubouchi Shuchi Sekiyama Toshio B+2 sgf
Qualification final 1976-02-19 Kajiwara Takeo Ohira Shuzo B+7 sgf
Qualification final 1976-02-19 Kudo Norio Kato Masao B+2 sgf

League

Results (in the first column the white player, on the top row the black player). The ordering of the first six players is according to their results in the previous year. The last three are the winners of the entrance matches (in some order).

# player result 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Ishida Yoshio 6-2 B+4 B+5 W+2 W+R
2. Fujisawa Shuko 3-5 B+R W+2 B+R B+R
3. Sakata Eio 4-4 W+R W+R W+R B+1
4. Hashimoto Utaro 4-4 B+14 W+R B+R B+R
5. Rin Kaiho 6-2 B+2 W+16 W+R W+R
6. Yamabe Toshiro 1-7 B+5 B+R B+R B+R
7. Kubouchi Shuchi 4-4 B+R W+1 B+R W+R
8. Kajiwara Takeo 4-4 W+9 W+R B+R B+6
9. Kudo Norio 4-4 B+R B+R B+R W+R

Demotion Playoff

Kajiwara Takeo and Kudo Norio played a demotion playoff that was won by Kajiwara Takeo.

game date black white result sgf
Demotion playoff 1976-09-09 Kajiwara Takeo Kudo Norio B+1

Yamabe Toshiro, Fujisawa Shuko, and Kudo Norio are demoted.

1st Meijin Title

date black white result #mv sgf
1976-09-16,17 Otake Hideo Ishida Yoshio B+R 177 sgf
1976-09-29,30 Ishida Yoshio Otake Hideo W+5 266 sgf
1976-10-06,07 Otake Hideo Ishida Yoshio B+2 234 sgf
1976-10-20,21 Ishida Yoshio Otake Hideo B+2 229 sgf
1976-10-27,28 Otake Hideo Ishida Yoshio B+R 129 sgf

Otake Hideo won 4-1.