The mats in the game room were changed the night before the first Itō
session. The room had the smell of new mats when we came in on the
morning of the eighteenth. Kosugi of the Fourth Rank had gone to the
Naraya for the famous board used during the Hakoné sessions. At their
places, the Master and Otaké uncovered their bowls of stones. The black
stones were coated over with summer mildew. With the help of the desk
clerk and the maids they were cleaned on the spot.
It was ten thirty when White 100 was opened.
Black 99 had “peeped” upon the White triangle, and White 100 joined
the threatened White pieces. The last session at Hakoné had consisted of
the one sealed play.
“Even considering that I was very ill and that White 100 was my last
play before going into the hospital,” said the Master in his comments upon
the game, “it was a somewhat ill-considered play. I should have ignored the
peep and pressed ahead at S-8 and so secured the White territory off toward
the lower right. Black had threatened, to be sure, but there was no
immediate need for him to cut my line, and even if he had I would not have
been in great difficulty. Had I used White 100 to protect my own ground,
the outlook would not have been such as to permit sanguineness on Black’s
part.”
Yet White 100 was not a bad play, and one could not say that it
weakened the White position. Otaké had assumed that the Master would
respond to the “peep” by linking his stones, and to us bystanders the linking
seemed quite natural.
One would imagine that though White 100 was a sealed play Otaké had
for three months known what it would be. Now, inevitably, Black 101 must
