Games - Sakata Eio

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Sakata Eio (坂田栄男, born February 15, 1920) is a professional 9-dan Japanese professional Go player.

Biography

Sakata became a professional Go player in 1935. His first title match came in 1951 when he challenged Hashimoto Utaro in the Honinbo. At the time, Hashimoto started the Kansai-Kiin, so Sakata was under pressure to win the title back for the Nihon-Kiin. Sakata started out good, winning 3 matches to one, but Hashimoto fought back and won 4 games. After losing embarrassingly, Sakata went on to winning a couple small titles, which would be the start of his meteoric run of titles. He won almost all the titles in Japan, except the Honinbo. By 1961, he finally became the challenger for the Honinbo. His opponent was Takagawa Kaku, who had held the title for an amazing 9 years straight already. Sakata went on to winning the Honinbo, then in 1963 captured the Meijin. This meant Sakata was the first player to simultaneously hold the Meijin and Honinbo titles; which were at the time the biggest titles in Japan. Sakata hit his peak in 1964, winning 30 games and lost 2, holding a record seven titles: Meijin, Honinbo, Nihon Kiin Championship, Pro Best Ten, Oza, Nihon Kiin #1, and NHK Cup. He would generally start to degrade downward in 1965. Sakata's challenger for the 1965 Meijin was Rin Kaiho, who at the time was just 23 years old. No one thought Rin would have a chance, but he went on to beating Sakata and winning the Meijin. Sakata challenged two years in a row, but still couldn't win the Meijin back. Then, Rin went on to taking the Honinbo from Sakata. Although losing the 2 biggest titles, Sakata wasn't done yet. He went on to winning many other titles, including the Judan and Oza. A new wave of players came in the 70's, who were the ones to seal off Sakata from winning more titles.

Sakata is also the author of many books in Japanese, including Modern Joseki and Fuseki, The Middle Game of Go, Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go and Killer of Go.

Titles and runner-ups

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