It was the Master’s first experience with the sealed play. At the
beginning of the second session the envelope was brought from the safe of
the Kōyōkan, and the seal inspected by the contestants with the secretary of
the Association as witness. The contestant who had made the sealed play
showed the chart to his adversary, and a stone was placed appropriately on
the board. At Hakoné and at Itō the same procedure was followed. The
sealed play was in effect a way of hiding from an adversary the last play of
a session.
In games lasting over several sessions, it was the custom from ancient
times for Black to make the last play of a session, as an act of courtesy
toward the more distinguished player. Since the practice gave the advantage
to the latter, the injustice was remedied by having the player whose turn it
was at the prearranged end of a session, say five o’clock, make the last
play. A further refinement was hit upon: to seal the last play. Go took its
example from chess, which had first devised the sealed play. The purpose
was to eliminate the manifest irrationality of allowing the first player at the
beginning of a session, having seen the last play, the whole of the recess,
and it could be several days, in which to deliberate his next play, and of not
charging the prolonged interval against his allotted time.
It may be said that the Master was plagued in his last match by modern
rationalism, to which fussy rules were everything, from which all the grace
and elegance of Go as art had disappeared, which quite dispensed with
respect for elders and attached no importance to mutual respect as human
beings. From the way of Go the beauty of Japan and the Orient had fled.
Everything had become science and regulation. The road to advancement in
rank, which controlled the life of a player, had become a meticulous point
system. One conducted the battle only to win, and there was no margin for
