In the last decade or so of the Master’s life he played only three title
matches. In all three he fell ill midway through the match. He was
bedridden after the first, and after the third he died. All three were
eventually finished, but because of recesses the first took two months, the
second four, and the third, announced as his last, nearly six months.
The second was held in 1930, five years before the last.
Wu of the Fifth
Rank was the challenger. The two sides were in delicate balance as the
match came into its middle stages, and at about White 150 the Master
seemed in a shade the weaker position. Then, at White 160, he made a most
extraordinary play, and his second victory was assured. It was rumored that
the play was in fact conceived by Maeda of the Sixth Rank, one of the
Master’s disciples. Even now the truth is in doubt. Maeda himself has
denied the allegation. The game lasted four months, and no doubt the
Master’s disciples studied it with great care. White 160 may indeed have
been invented by one of them, and perhaps, since it was a remarkable
invention, someone did pass it on to the Master. Perhaps, again, the play
was the Master’s own. Only the Master and his disciples know the truth.
The first of the three matches, in 1926, was actually between the
Association and a rival group, the Kiseisha, and the generals of the two
forces, the Master and Karigané of the Seventh Rank, were in single
combat; and there can be little doubt that during the two months it lasted
the rival forces put a great deal of study into it. One cannot be sure all the
same that they gave advice to their respective leaders. I rather doubt that
they did. The Master was not one to ask advice, nor was he an easy man to
approach with advice. The solemnity of his art was such as to reduce one to
silence.
And even during this his last match there were rumors. Was the recess,
ostensibly because of his illness, in fact a stratagem on his part? To me,
watching the game through to the end, such allegations were impossible to
believe.
