The second Judan game was held at the Ginpaso Hotel in the town of Gamagori, which is in central Japan and close to Toyota city. The Ginpaso is located right next to the beach, and from the playing room we could see the huge cargo ships filled to
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| The beach-side Ginpaso in Gamagori |
But the outside world impinges on Japan, too, and in go there the time allowance per game keeps getting shorter and closer to the international norm of three hours each. For this game, once allocated nine hours each over two days, the players had "only" four hours each to do their worst.
The funny thing about Cho Chikun, though, is that he is notorious for using up most of his time on the very early part of the game but does not seem to perform well when allowed too much time to ponder his moves. Miyamoto Naoki 9-dan, who was present to help the reporters understand the game, put it this way: "To me there is no mystery about why Cho spends an exorbitant amount of time even if there does not seem to be much to think about. I'm pretty sure that he feels he cannot play well unless he is under intense pressure and plays in byoyomi."
As we have said, besides the Judan title Cho now also holds the NHK Cup title. This tournament is played over one year, one game every Sunday. Each move has to be played within 30 seconds. Takemiya "Cosmic Style" Masaki seems to agree with Miyamoto. "It may sound a bit strange but I think that for Cho even 30 seconds a move is too much time. Cho seems to have the ability to play very strongly even when he has only a few seconds to make up his mind. The 30-second time allowance of the NHK Cup tournament is just long enough for Cho to start wondering and to doubt his instinct," said Takemiya when he did the game commentary for the NHK final against Yuki Satoshi 9-dan.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that Cho loves to spend time behind the board and just sit there thinking and reading out sequences to a, most likely, scary depth.
This is exactly the way I accidentally found him when entering the playing room at 12:40 on 29 March.
Cho Chikun in a world of his own