Iyama Yuta becomes youngest Meijin, sets new records


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Iyama Yuta becomes youngest Meijin, sets new records

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On 15 October, Iyama Yuta 8-dan won the fifth game of the 34th Meijin title match. This completed a four-game winning streak against Cho U, so he won the match 4-1, becoming the youngest Meijin in tournament history. Iyama is barely out of his teens, being 20 years four months old. The previous record was held by Rin Kaiho, Honorary Tengen, who won the Meijin title in 1965 at the age of 23.

Iyama also just managed to set a new record for the youngest player to hold a top-seven title - the previous one was held by Cho Chikun, who won the 24th Oza title at the age of 20 years five months）. Since Iyama earned an automatic promotion to 9-dan, he also became the youngest 9-dan ever in Japan. The previous record was set by Cho U when he won the Honinbo title at the age of 23 in 2003 and was promoted to 9-dan.

The second game of the match was held at the Hotel Nikko Kumamoto in Kumamoto City on 16 and 17 September. The challenger outplayed Cho U Meijin in the decisive middle-game fight and evened the score.

In the third game, held at the Takarazuka Hotel in Takarazuka City, Hyogo Prefecture, on 24 and 25 September, Cho, who is renowned for his ko expertise, made an uncharacteristic mistake in a ko fight that he had started. That turned out to be fatal: Cho attacked fiercely in an attempt to catch up, but Iyama coolly parried the attacks though in byo-yomi. Cho finally resigned after 246 moves.

The fourth game was played at the Saryo Soen, a luxury Japanese inn in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, on 7 and 8 October. Like the previous three games, it featured spectacular fighting full of original moves. Playing black, Iyama took the initiative and forced Cho on the defensive. Eventually the pressure became too much for White to bear and he was forced to resign after 159 moves.

The fifth game was held at the Atami Sekitei inn in Atami City, Shizuoka Prefecture, on 14 and 15 October. Taking white, Iyama played a relatively new move early in the opening that upset Cho's plans and helped Iyama get off to a good start. He took more territory than the usually territorial Cho and put him under a lot of pressure. Already on the first day the game seemed to tilt in his favour. On the second day, Iyama skillfully looked after two weak groups and kept a secure hold on the initiative, so Cho was unable to chip away at his lead. The game finished at 4:48 p.m., with Cho resigning after 176 moves.

Cho freely admitted that he had been outplayed by Iyama. "Iyama played moves that were better than I had expected, and I felt once again how strong he is. This game was clearly bad for me from the first day; around the sealed move, the more I looked at the board, the worse it looked for me. I felt that Iyama was cleverly outplaying me." Cho's quintuple crown is now down to four titles.

Source: Nihon Ki-in

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