The "What's New" section of "Game Collection" here at http://www.go4go.net/ lists a game:
60th Japanese Honinbo, demotion play-off
What is a "demotion playoff" ?
In the old days of the Oteai, a pro's rank never dropped. Once a pro attained 1-dan, the only place to go was up. Same for all the other ranks.
Now, ranks are awarded based upon tournament results....so can pro's lose rank?
The Honinbo tournament has a
The Honinbo tournament has a league of 8 players competing the challenger position. Each year 4 of league players with better scores will remain in the league for the next year and 4 will be demoted -- meaning that they have to play the preliminary stage next season. Sometime the 4th and the 5th place in the league cannot be determined and one extra game has to be arranged to decide who stays. Maybe someone can suggest a better way to describe this extra game.
mm, I have a further
mm, I have a further question: in the Honinbo League, 2 players were in with 6-1 scores, Cho Sonjin and Takao Shinji, and they played the challenger match. But 3 players tied for 3-5 with 4-3 scores, Yoda Norimoto, O Meien, and So Yokoku.
How come Yoda Norimoto got an automatic inclusion while O Meien and So Yokoku had to play the demotion match? What was the tiebreaker, performance against the 1-2 players (Y.M. earned 1 win while the others lost both)?
Oops, here is the link I use
Oops, here is the link I use for info on the Honinbo: http://igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/honinbo.html
Yoda Norimoto is considered in a better position when there is a 3-way tie, because his 'Rank' in high. I do not entirely understand how the system works. But as you can see from the league table, the four new players passing the preliminary stage have rank 5. The four players remains from previous league have rank 1 though 4, likely based on their league scores from previous year.