Black 83 took even longer, an hour and forty-eight minutes, than White
70. Gazing intently at the right side of the board, Otaké pushed himself a
shin’s length away, cushion and all. Then he put his hands inside his
kimono and, shoulders back, seemed to brace himself. It was his signal that
a long period of deliberation had begun.
The match was entering its middle phases. Every play was a difficult
one. It was fairly clear which territories White and Black had staked out,
and the time was approaching when a calculation of the final score might
be possible. Proceed immediately into a final showdown, invade enemy
ground, challenge to close-in fighting somewhere on the board?—the time
had come for a summing up, and for projecting the phases to come.
Dr. Felix Dueball, who had learned Go in Japan and gone back to
Germany, and who was known at “the German Honnimbō,” sent the Master
a congratulatory telegram on the occasion of his retirement match. A
picture of the two players reading the telegram had been in the morning’s
Nichinichi.
White 88 was the sealed play of the session.
