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| Gosei Tournament (sample page) |
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| Events | Winners | Prize money | Path to title | Time | Komi | Sponsor | Nomenclature | Quick Links | ||
The Gosei is the successor to, in turn, the Nihon Ki-in Highest Dans Tournament, the Nihon Ki-in First Place Tournament and the All-Japan First Place Tournament. The change to the Gosei was made in 1975 to keep pace with the creation of the new Tengen and Kisei titles. It counts as a major - one of the top seven title - but only in seventh place. Apart from lower fees, it also had the shortest time limits of the open tournaments.
In Term 1 Otake was counted as the holder, being holder of the All-Japan First Place title.
| Title winners |
| Term | Year | Winner | Score | Runner-up | |
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| 1 | 1976 | Kato Masao | 3-2 | Otake Hideo |  Otake counted as title holder
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| 2 | 1977 | Kato Masao | 3-0 | Takemiya Masaki |
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| 3 | 1978 | Otake Hideo | 3-1 | Kato Masao | This link works
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| 4 | 1979 | Cho Chikun | 3-0 | Otake Hideo |
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| 5 | 1980 | Otake Hideo | 3-1 | Cho Chikun | Switch from league to KO
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| 6 | 1981 | Otake Hideo | 3-1 | Kato Masao |
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| 7 | 1982 | Otake Hideo | 3-2 | Cho Chikun |
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| 8 | 1983 | Otake Hideo | 3-2 | Awaji Shuzo |
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| 9 | 1984 | Otake Hideo | 3-1 | Kato Masao | Otake >> Hon. Gosei
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| 10 | 1985 | Otake Hideo | 3-1 | Kudo Norio | Expanded KO
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| 11 | 1986 | Cho Chikun | 3-0 | Otake Hideo |
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| 12 | 1987 | Kato Masao | 3-1 | Cho Chikun |
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| 13 | 1988 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-0 | Kato Masao |
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| 14 | 1989 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-1 | Imamura Toshiya |
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| 15 | 1990 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-0 | Kobayashi Satoru |
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| 16 | 1991 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-2 | Kobayashi Satoru |
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| 17 | 1992 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-1 | Kobayashi Satoru |
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| 18 | 1993 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-0 | Rin Kaiho |
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| 19 | 1994 | Rin Kaiho | 3-1 | Kobayashi Koichi |
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| 20 | 1995 | Kobayashi Satoru | 3-2 | Rin Kaiho |
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| 21 | 1996 | Yoda Norimoto | 3-0 | Kobayashi Satoru |
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| 22 | 1997 | Yoda Norimoto | 3-1 | Yuki Satoshi |
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| 23 | 1998 | Yoda Norimoto | 3-0 | Sonoda Yuichi |
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| 24 | 1999 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-2 | Yoda Norimoto |
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| 25 | 2000 | Yamashita Keigo | 3-2 | Kobayashi Koichi |
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| 26 | 2001 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-2 | Yamashita Keigo |
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| 27 | 2002 | Kobayashi Koichi | 3-1 | Yuki Satoshi |
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| 28 | 2003 | Yoda Norimoto | 3-2 | Kobayashi Koichi | Report to come
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All the title games are in the GoGoD database.
| Prize money |
Although it is still classed as a major, it has slipped badly behind other tournaments as regards prize money. Top prize (as of 2001) is ¥7.77 million, including game fees. The runner-up gets ¥2.19 million. As a benchmark, in 1983 first prize was ¥3.6 million, and second prize ¥720,000. In addition the titleholder had a match fee of ¥1.2 million and the challenger's was ¥0.8 million.
| Path to the title |
The title holder is challenged by a challenger who is the winner of a year-long qualification system. Although this has changed, it has always reflected the fact that the precursor tournaments were intended for high-dan players, and so entry is limited to players of 5-dan and above, from either the Nihon Ki-in or the Kansai Ki-in.
Originally there was a 5-man league, the places of which were filled by the winners of five parallel knockouts (involving 20 odd players in total), which in turn followed a preliminary. Nowadays (as of 2001) the final stage is a knockout of around 32 players. Seeds in either Round 1 or Round 2 are typically the loser of the title match and the loser of the previous year's challengers' final, the players in third and fourth place in the previous challengers' section, plus two players invited by the sponsors. All other places are filled by those successful in the preliminaries.
| Time Limits |
Currently 4 hours each (with a one-hour lunch break). It was originally 5 hours (Terms 1-16), and at the time this was the shortest time limit of the open tournaments.
| Komi |
Originally 5.5 points; from Term 29 (2003) 6.5 points.
| Sponsor |
The Gosei tournament is sponsored by the Newspaper Go Consortium (Shinbun Igo Renmei), membership of which has varied over the years. The current (2002) members are the 12 newspapers Kahoku Shinpo (Sendai), Niigata Nippo (Niigata), Shinano Mainichi Shinbun (Nagano), Shizuoka Shinbun (Shizuoka), Hokkoku Shinbun (Kanazawa), Kyoto Shinbun (Kyoto), Chugoku Shinbun (Hiroshima), Shikoku Shinbun (Takamatsu), Kochi Shinbun (Kochi), Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbun (Kumamoto), Minami-Nippon Shinbun (Kagoshima), Okinawa Times (Naha).
The original consortium was: Hokkai Times (Sapporo), Kahoku Shinpo (Sendai), Hokkoku Shinbun (Kanazawa), Niigata Nippo (Niigata), Tokyo Times (Tokyo), Kyoto Shinbun (Kyoto), Chugoku Shinbun (Hiroshima), Kochi Shinbun (Kochi), Ehime Shinbun (Ehime), Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbun (Kumamoto), Minami-Nippon Shinbun (Kagoshima).
The event has also been supported latterly by IBM Japan.
| Nomenclature |
| Japanese | 
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| Chinese | 
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| Korean | 
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The word Gosei
means Go Sage, the same as Kisei, but is a Japanese term. The character here
for go is not normally used in China, and so the term
is sometimes used there.