What is Juban Chess

Japanese Chess

Japanese Chess, also known as Ten Games of Chess, is a form of Go. Both players play ten games of Go, and the first player to win six games wins. This form of the game was popular in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties and in Japan because of the large number of games and the low chance. Some of the more famous ones are Blood and Tears Ten Games, Danghu Ten Games and Wu Qingyuan Ten Games, with the most recent ten games tournament being the Gu Li Ten Games played in 2014.

(1) History

Ten games originated in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, where two players played ten games in a phase, with the winner being the one who won the most games. Just like a samurai's battle with real swords, it is extremely brutal as one of the two players will be injured if they fight for supremacy. In ancient China, some of the more famous ten games include the Ten Games of Tears of Blood between Huang Longshi and Xu Xingyou in the Qing Dynasty, and the Ten Games of Danghu between Fan Xiping and Shi Xiangxia.

In Japan, japanese chess is a tournament system that originated from a brutal competition among the four major Go clans during the Shogunate period for chess honors, and it was widely popular in the Japanese chess world in the late 19th century. At that time, the game was based on a system of promotion and demotion. If a player won more than four games, the laggard would be "demoted", i.e., dropped one rank in terms of the number of games played. In an era when players valued rank and honor above all else, the price of defeat was not only the defeat itself, but also the loss of reputation, which was brutal to say the least. If one player was defeated, the winner, who should have been treated as an equal, would be clearly separated from the other player by about one rank. After that, the loser can no longer play the winner as an equal.

In the 1930s and 1950s, Wu Qingyuan played ten games against the best Japanese players at that time (Minoru Kimitani, Junichi Yankin, Tomosai Fujisawa, Utaro Hashimoto, Eio Sakata, Kaoru Iwamoto, and Gakkawagi, etc.), and won all of them, with the exception of the ten games in which he was awarded the first move by Fujisawa, which is known as the Wu Qingyuan ten games. "In 1956, Wu Qingyuan and Takagawa ended their ten-game duel, and in the eighth game, Wu had won six games and lost two, reducing Takagawa to a "first-phase-first" match (in three games). Takagawa went ahead with black in two of the three games, without posting an eye). Since then, there have been no more ten-player games in the chess world for about 60 years.

On January 26, 2014, Chinese player Gu Li 9-dan and South Korean player Lee Sedol 9-dan resumed this tournament format for the Mlily Dream Lily Battle of the Century - Gu-Li Deck. Finally Lee Sedol won with 6 wins and 2 losses.

(2) Rules of the game

The rules of tenfold chess are no different from those of ordinary games in ancient China. In Japan, japanese chess is a form of chess, but it is a system of lifting and lowering, where the black pieces are not posted to the eyes, and the moves are exchanged, and the negative side is lowered by half in the event of a difference of 4 games (4-0, 5-1, 6-2, 7-3), which is also known as first-phase-first (the top two white pieces in the top two of the three games), and then letting go first.

Normally, 10 games are played until the end, so that the score can be separated, but usually the whole ten games ends when one player reduces the other to a tempo. There are examples of interruptions, however, and in June 1941, Wu Qingyuan's ten-player game with Junichi Yanjin began. By 1942, Wu Qingyuan was leading with four wins and one loss, and the organizers stopped all subsequent games due to concern for reputation.

The Koo-Lee ten-game tournament held in 2014 used the Chinese rules of Go, with black posting 3 and 3/4 discs, and was timed with four hours of reserve time for each side, five one-minute readings, and no board closure at noon. The tournament will be played in ten games, with the winner of the first six games being the final winner, and the tournament will be declared over. The total prize money for the tournament is 5 million RMB before tax, with the winner getting all the money and the loser getting 200,000 RMB; in case of a 5-5 draw, the prize money will be equally divided.

(C) Famous games

1. Ten games of blood and tears

The "Ten games of blood and tears" is a famous game of ancient handicap chess in which Huang Longshi taught his pupil Xu Xingyou three pieces. Huang Longshi was the dominant Go master in the middle of the Kangxi period, and was known as one of the three great Go saints of the Qing Dynasty, along with Fan Xiping and Shi Xiangxia. When Xu Xingyou reached the level of two discs difference with Huang Longshi, Huang Longshi still let Xu Xingyou play ten games with three discs, in order to inspire Xu Xingyou, who was not as good as his master, to give full play to his full potential and chess skills, and finally "forced" Xu Xingyou to become a national player. This ten games of chess, the first in the history of the chess world, became an unprecedented and monumental work. Qing Dynasty Li Ruzhen "received the son of the spectrum - where the case" said: "Huang Longshi and Xu Xingyou ten games, the name 'tears of blood chapter', is when Xu has become second-hand, Huang reason to suppress with three children, during which the exhaustion of the mind, novelty and abruptness of the past is unprecedented, ten games after the end of the Xu Sui into a national game."

2. Danghu ten games

"Danghu ten games" refers to the Qing Dynasty Go players Fan Xiping and Shi Xiangxia in the fourth year of the Qianlong era (1739 AD) in Zhejiang Province, Danghu (i.e., Pinghu) under the ten games, reflecting the highest level of Go at that time, in which Fan was in charge of four games, Shi was in charge of six games, and the two sides won five games each. From the game's point of view, it can be said that the game was out of the ordinary, with thousands of scenarios, and the key point of the killing method was exquisite and thrilling, which brought the traditional skills of Chinese Weiqi into full play. The "Ten Games of Danghu" is not only a masterpiece of Fan and Shi, but also the pinnacle of the ancient Chinese seat system. Qian Baotang's "Preface to the Ten Games of Fan and Shi" says: "In the past, the "Hug Park Zi" said that those who are good at Go are called the saints of Go. If the two Mr., really worthy of the name of the saint of chess, although only ten games, wonderful today and in the past." Haichang Ermiaoji commented: "the strength of the flex disk, the head and tail for a book, the power of the great, not Fan, Shi encounter, can not have this great view."

3. Wu Qingyuan ten-fold chess

"Wu Qingyuan ten-fold chess" is also known as "Wu Qingyuan ten-fold chess". Wu Qingyuan was recognized as the king of Jubanqi, and in 1928, at the age of 14, he went east to Japan, where his unparalleled talent for Go was revealed. The Japanese people, who were also very competitive with Minoru Kimitani, organized the "Ten-Play Chess Game" for them to determine the real No.1 King of the game. From 1939 to 1956, in the ten times of ten games, Wu Qingyuan put Kigutani, Yanjin Junichi, Fujisawa Kunosuke, Hashimoto Utamaro, Iwamoto Kaoru, Sakata Eio, Takagawa Ge and other masters to the degree of letting the first, fixed first, swept through the Japanese chess world, and was called by the fans as the "eternal saint of chess", thus laying down the "four thousand years of the history of Go". He was called the "Eternal Sage of Go" by his fans, thus establishing his position as the "first person in 4,000 years of Go history".