Kaoru Iwamoto

Kaoru Iwamoto ( Japanese 岩 本 薫 ; born February 5, 1902 in Masuda , Japan ; † November 29, 1999 ), also known as Hon'inbō Kunwa ( 本因坊 薫 和 ), was a professional Go player from Japan.

Life

Iwamoto was born in the Japanese prefecture of Shimane and spent several years in Busan (1905–1913), which was then part of Japan , where he learned the game of Go from his father. To study the game further, he later returned to Tokyo and in 1913 became a student of Hirose Heijiro (6p). He reached the first dan four years later and rose rapidly. When the Japanese go-federation Nihon Ki-in was established in 1924 , Iwamoto joined and reached the 6th Dan. In 1929 he withdrew from the Go to work as a coffee grower in Brazil. When the project failed in 1931, however, he returned to Japan and devoted himself to Go again.

In 1935 he won the Ōteai tournament, the most important Japanese tournament at the time. Ten years later he challenged Hashimoto Utaro for the title of Hon'inbo . The second game of this tournament, which was played on the outskirts of Hiroshima , went down in history as the American atomic bomb was dropped on the city during the game . Both players owed their lives to the relocation of the venue to the outskirts of the city. After the war ended, the tournament continued and ended in a draw after six games. In 1946 a three-game decision tournament was held, which Iwamoto won after the second game. He then accepted the honorary title Honinbo Kunwa .

In 1947 he was able to defend his Honinbo title against Kitani Minoru and in 1948 reached the eighth dan, which he also became president of Nihon Ki-in. In 1950 he lost the Honinbo title to Hashimoto Utaro. In 1955, however, he was able to win the NHK tournament. He also traveled extensively to make the game of Go better known in western countries. He spent 1961 and 1962 in New York to teach Go there. There he was able to win several talented western players. He reached the ninth dan in 1967.

In 1983 Iwamoto ended his career and supported various go clubs around the world as a sponsor, for which he founded the Iwamoto Foundation in 1986.

Works

• Go for beginners . Pantheon, New York 1977, ISBN 978-0-394-73331-9 .
• Keshi and Uchikomi. Reduction and Invasion in Go . Slate and Shell, Richmond 2002, ISBN 978-0-9709530-3-2 .
• The 1971 Honinbo Tournament . Kiseido Publishing Company, 1999, ISBN 978-4-906574-07-0 .