strike into White territory toward the lower right. To us amateurs it seemed
that Otaké had a natural play, a space removed on the “S” line from Black
87. Yet he still had not played when noon came and the recess for lunch.
We were surprised to see the Master out in the garden during the recess.
Plum branches and pine needles glistened in the sun, and there were white
yatsudé flowers and yellow, daisylike silverleaf. On the camellia below
Otaké’s room a single blossom with crinkled petals had come out. The
Master gazed at it.
At the afternoon session, a pine cast its shadow on the paper doors of the
game room. A white-eye chirped outside. There were large carp in the
pond. The carp at the Naraya in Hakoné had been of various hues. These
were the natural gray.
Even the Master seemed bored. It was taking Otaké a very long time to
play. The Master closed his eyes and might have been asleep.
“A difficult spot,” muttered Yasunaga of the Fourth Rank. He sat cross-
legged with one foot drawn up on the other thigh. His eyes too were closed.
What was so difficult about it? I began to suspect that Otaké was
deliberately holding back from the obvious play, the jump to R-13. The
managers too were impatient. Otaké said in his comments after the match
that he had debated whether to “swim” at R-12 or jump to R-13. The
Master too said in his review of the game that it was difficult to judge the
relative merits of the two plays. Yet I thought it most odd that Otaké should
use three and a half hours for the first play after the long recess. The sun
was low and the lights had been turned on when finally he made his
decision. It took the Master only five minutes to play White 102 in the
space over which Black had jumped. Otaké took forty-two minutes for
Black 105. There were only five plays during the first Itō session. Black
105 became the sealed play.
