The Oza is Murakawa Daisuke 8 dan’s first major title.

The final game of the 62nd Oza title match was played on December 16, 2014, in Toba, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

Murakawa Daisuke 8p defeated Iyama Yuta 9p with a 3-2 score, to become the new Oza title holder.

This is the first time a player from the Kansai Kiin has won the Oza since Hashimoto Shoji 9p did so in 1981 (33 years ago).

The Oza is Murakawa’s first major title.

Murakawa Daisuke 8 dan (left) defeated Iyama Yuta 9 dan to win the best of five Oza title match.

A blow to Iyama Yuta’s ambitions

The result of this match attracted a lot of attention in Japan, because the former Oza, Iyama Yuta, currently dominates the domestic Japanese Go scene.

Before this match Iyama still held six of the seven major Japanese titles.

Are Iyama Yuta 9 dan’s hopes of claiming all seven major Japanese titles slipping away?

However, in snatching the Oza, Murakawa has reduced that total to five.

This will further frustrate Iyama’s hopes of achieving the gland slam of Japanese Go, by claiming all seven major titles simultaneously.

Iyama currently holds the Kisei, Meijin, Honinbo, Tengen and Gosei titles, but not the Oza or the Judan.

It’s worth noting that no Japanese Go player has ever held all seven at once.

Iyama’s best chance to do so may have been to reclaim the Judan from Yuki Satoshi 9p earlier this year (Yuki took the title from Iyama in 2013).

Unfortunately, he lost the challenger decision match to Takao Shinji 9p and wasn’t able to challenge Yuki after all. Takao went on to take the title from Yuki in April 2014.

Takao Shinji 9 dan (right) took the Judan title from Yuki Satoshi 9 dan in April 2014.

It may be too early to say for sure, but at this stage it seems like Iyama’s prospects of a grand slam are slipping away.

Professionals associated with the Kansai Kiin are proving to be Iyama Yuta’s kryptonite. Both Murakawa Daisuke and Yuki Satoshi are Kansai Kiin players.

Murakawa Daisuke

Murakawa Daisuke was born in 1990. He became a pro in 2002 at the Kansai Kiin. The Kansai Kiin is a Go association in Japan, like the Nihon Kiin, but based in Osaka.

Murakawa Daisuke 8 dan (left) reviews a game with Sakai Hideyuki 8 dan (facing camera) and Kono Rin 9 dan.

Murakawa won the rookie of the year award in 2006.

In 2011, he won the 36th Shinjin-O, which is a tournament for young players, like the Chinese Xinrenwang tournament.

He was awarded the prize of ‘best player of the year’, by the Kansai Kiin, in 2012.

Murakawa has also been doing reasonably well on the international scene.

He proceeded to the main tournament of the 15th Samsung Cup in 2010, and was the only Japanese player to survive the preliminaries at the time.

He defeated Tuo Jiaxi 9p, the current LG Cup title holder, in the 17th LG Cup preliminaries (2012).

And he came 2nd in the Hase Cup, in February 2014, after losing to Shi Yue 9p in the final. However, in this exhibition match, Murakawa defeated Lee Sedol 9p.

After taking the Oza title from Iyama Yuta, Murakawa was promoted to 8p (from 7p) by the Kansai Kiin (based on the Kiin’s promotion rules).

The Oza

The Oza (王座 – literally king’s seat, or throne) is one of the seven big titles on the Japanese professional Go circuit.

The Oza follows a similar format to other big Japanese titles. A preliminary tournament is held for qualification into a 16 player single knockout tournament.

The winner of this knockout tournament challenges the defending title holder to a best of five match.

The sponsor is the Nihon Keizai Newspaper, and the winner’s prize is currently 14 million Yen (approximately $120,000 USD at the time of writing).

Since the Oza is one of the ‘Japanese big seven’ titles, a challenger is automatically promoted to 7 dan, while winning the title gains promotion to 8 dan. Winning the title twice results in acceleration to 9 dan.

An Younggil’s brief commentary

Younggil has kindly provided the following commentary, on game 5 of the Oza title match, for Go Game Guru readers (you can find the game record below):

Iyama Yuta held black.

The opening up to 21 was peaceful, but fighting began with White 22.

White 28 was a creative leaning tesuji, and the result up to White 42 was even.

Black 43 was questionable, and the result after the ko, up to Black 63, was favorable for White.

Another big ko started after White 70, and White was successful again up to White 84.

Black 111 was a nice move, which enlarged the right side, but White’s combination with 116 and 118 created yet another ko.

This ko fight made the game complicated, but White was still ahead through to White 124.

Black tried to catch up with Black 133 and 135, but White 138 and 142 were strong moves in the center fight.

White 150 was a brilliant way to take sente. After that, Black 155 was necessary, because White was aiming to play at G16.

White countered Black’s attack powerfully, with 156 through to 160, and White 168 was the coup de grâce.

Black’s dragon in the center was captured, so it looks like Iyama must have misread something around here.

Black tried to minimize the damage from 173 to 181, but it wasn’t good enough to catch up.

Murakawa played safely in the endgame and Iyama didn’t have any more chances to reverse the game.

62nd Oza title match results

Game 1: Oct 21, 2014 – Iyama Yuta (black) won by 0.5 points
Game 2: Nov 18, 2014 – Murakawa (black) won by 1.5 points
Game 3: Nov 20, 2014 – Iyama Yuta (black) won by 2.5 points
Game 4: Dec 08, 2014 – Murakawa (black) won by resignation
Game 5: Dec 16, 2014 – Murakawa (white) won by 1.5 points.

You can download all five games here and replay game 5 below.

62nd Oza title match – Game 5

Iyama Yuta vs Murakawa Daisuke

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Go Game Guru is now in Canada too!

Today I can finally announce that Go Game Guru has come to Canada!

Our new warehouse near Toronto will provide cheaper and faster local shipping options to Canadians.

This builds upon our existing services in the US, UK, Australia and Asia.

A variety of new, affordable shipping options, with Canada Post and Purolator, are available in our store right now.

How Go Game Guru saves you money

It’s taken four years of hard work, but our little Go store in one corner of the world has grown into a moyo which spans seven locations, six countries and four continents:

Go Game Guru saves you money by shipping from the closest of seven international locations.

• US East (Philadelphia)
• US West (Los Angeles)
• Canada (Toronto)
• UK and Europe (London)
• Australia and New Zealand (Sydney)
• Asia (Seoul)
• Asia (Hong Kong – we know the SAR has its own flag).

We did all this because we’re serious about making Go equipment and books more readily available and affordable around the world.

Cheaper and faster shipping

Because we store most of our popular products as close to you as possible, we can ship to you at the lowest possible price, with the fastest possible delivery.

We ship your orders locally wherever possible, resulting in super fast, affordable shipping.

Cheaper overall prices

And because we use sea freight to stock local warehouses well in advance (which is cheap, but super slow), we reduce the overall cost of getting Go equipment from the factory to you.

You don’t have to wait for Go equipment to come from Asia though, because we’ve already got equipment ready and waiting for you.

These savings are reflected in lower prices in our store. Because our costs are lower, yours are too.

Of course, quality comes into the price equation too. We try to provide the best value for money of any Go store, including selling some really cheap stuff as well as some better quality stuff.

The long part of the journey is done by sea. This saves us money, which saves you money too!
(Note: Actual ship is not this precarious.)

Less headaches with customs

And don’t forget that if you live in one of the countries listed above (or the EU), we’ve already done all the paperwork to import the goods and paid the taxes while doing so.

Those costs are already included in our prices, which means what you see is what you get. You won’t have to fill in forms or pay unexpected taxes when you order locally from Go Game Guru.

Canadians can say goodbye cross border brokerage fees

Something that infuriates many Canadians are the cross border ‘brokerage’ fees that couriers charge when shipping something from the US.

Look at the map above. Toronto is practically right next to Philly, but the national border makes all the difference.

Canadians are in the frustrating position of choosing between a courier (e.g. UPS, FedEx), who likes to surprise customers with an unexpected $30 brokerage fee on delivery, or USPS, who will do the GST paperwork for you, but cost almost twice as much.

We think an undisclosed $30 fee just to cross the border is a rort. That’s why we spent most of this year jumping through bureaucratic hoops, so that we can ship locally in Canada.

We’ve always done our best to help Canadians avoid brokerage fees (often by upgrading shipping at our own expense), but today we’ve solved the problem once and for all!

The not so fine print – what’s available in Canada right now

Most of our popular Go equipment (under $350) is available

As of today (December 16, 2014) most of our Go sets, and the stones and boards used in them, are available to ship immediately from Canada. In other words, almost everything in our store that’s priced under $350.

What are the exceptions?

The only exceptions to this are our Cheap Go Set, Newbie Go Set and Magnetic Go Set (these are not yet in Canada).

The Cheap Go Set and Newbie Go Set aren’t available yet because we have to have these made in huge quantities to keep the costs down. We’ll stock them in Canada as soon as we’re ready to make more and restock all the other warehouses too.

Go books will be arriving in Canada soon.

The Magnetic Go Sets were supposed to be available, but they seem to have gone missing (along with a few other products) after a long ordeal at Customs. Unfortunately that happens sometimes and we’re still trying to track them down.

In addition, luxury products (over $350) aren’t stored in all locations, because they cost too much to distribute and insure (99% of customers buy the products that we do store locally).

Go books are coming soon

There are no Go books in Canada yet, but we plan to have most of the books we sell stocked in Toronto in the first quarter of 2015.

There are quite a few Go books that aren’t available in every warehouse already, either because they’re out of print or because their publisher is difficult to deal with.

Books are also relatively cheap to ship from other locations, compared to Go equipment which is big and heavy. So equipment was the first priority.

In the meantime, I recommend that Canadians choose USPS or Royal Mail if ordering books before they’re available in Toronto.

What if you’re missing out?

But what if you live in another part of the world, which is far away from all of our warehouses?

We haven’t forgotten about you! The map above makes it pretty clear to us where we still have work to do.

Seamail is still available

In the short term, we can still ship to you by seamail.

It takes longer to arrive and you have to email us to organize it, but it’s still an option which can save some customers a lot of money. We might also be able to find cheaper airmail options if you email us.

Seamail shipping is no longer an option at our online checkout, because adding too many shipping options made our store too slow and confusing, which meant hardly anyone bought anything anymore until we removed them.

So if you live in South America or Africa and you’re willing to wait, email for seamail

We’re working on it

And remember, not everything can happen at once. We can only play one move at a time.

It took four years to get things to where they are now.

We’re doing our best and it’s still early in the game.

What’s next

In 2015, we want to take a short breather from the trials and tribulations of international logistics (and dealing with different governments!!!) and focus more on publishing videos, Go books and online lessons for the first half of the year.

It would also be nice to start writing articles for this website more frequently again!

However, we’ll also keep thinking about ways to make Go equipment more affordable and will be considering other countries which might make good shipping locations.

And now that we can distribute Go equipment at a low cost, it’s time to start supplying more local brick and mortar game stores. Having Go sets in actual, physical stores helps to spread Go.

If you have any requests, ideas you’d like to share, or know any game stores that we should contact, I’d love to hear from you!

You can click here to leave a comment below.

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