I can remember gasping when Otaké closed his lines at Black 47 and
White took the strategic star point with White 48. It was less that I felt
Otaké’s style of play in Black 47 than that I felt the formidable resolve with
which he had entered the match. He sent White back to the third line and
plunged in to build his own massive wall; and I felt absolute commitment.
He had taken his position. He was not going to lose the game and he was
not going to be deceived by White’s subtle stratagems.
If at White 100, in the middle phase of the game, the outcome seemed
uncertain, then Black was being outplayed by White; but the point may
have been that Otaké was playing a strong but careful game. Black had the
greater thickness and Black territory was secure, and the time was at hand
for Otaké’s own characteristic turn to the offensive, for the gnawing into
enemy formations at which he was so adept.
Otaké of the Seventh Rank has been called a reincarnation of Honnimbō
Jōwa.
Jōwa was the great master of the aggressive game. Honnimbō
Shūsai too has been likened to Jōwa. The essence of Jōwa’s game was to
build strong walls, move forward into open battle, and throw everything
into a frontal assault. It was a grand and turbulent style of Go, even a gaudy
style, replete with crises and rich in shifts and variations, very popular
among amateur fanciers of the game. The amateur audience for this the
Master’s final game therefore expected power against power, violent clash
upon violent clash, until the board had become one glorious entanglement.
That expectation could scarcely have been betrayed more thoroughly.
Otaké seemed cautious of challenging the Master at his own game. His
initial object to limit the Master’s freedom of motion and avoid difficult
entanglements over a broad front, he set about shaping his ranks after
patterns he had made peculiarly his own. Allowing the Master a strategic
point, he was all the while buttressing his own walls. What may at first
sight have seemed passive was in fact a strong undercurrent of aggression
and an unshakable confidence. What may have seemed mere tenacity had a
