In the world of competitive games, it seems to be the way of the
spectator to build up heroes beyond their actual powers. Pitting equal
adversaries against each other arouses interest of a sort, but is not the hope
really for a nonpareil? The grand figure of “the invincible Master” towered
over the Go board. There had been numerous other battles upon which the
Master had staked his destinies, and he had not lost one of them. The
results of contests before he gained the title may have been determined by
accident and shifting currents. After he became the Master, the world
believed that he could not lose, and he had to believe it himself. Therein
was the tragedy. By comparison with Sekiné, Master of Chess, who was
happiest when he lost, Shūsai the Master had a difficult life. One is told that
in Go the first player has seven chances in ten of winning, and so it should
have been in the nature of things for the Master as White to lose to Otaké;
but such refinements are beyond the amateur.
Probably the Master was lured into the game not only by the power of a
large newspaper and the size of the fee, but in very great measure too by a
real concern for his art. There could be no question that he was consumed
by a desire for battle. He probably would not have gone into the match had
it occurred to him that he might lose; and it was as if his life ended when
the crown of invincibility fell from his head. He had followed his
extraordinary destinies through to the end. Might one perhaps say that
following them meant flouting them?
Because the invincible Master, an absolute, was coming forward for the
first time in five years, a code unduly complicated even for the day was
drawn up. It later came to seem like a foreshadowing of death.
