After the first Itō session there was a disagreement, so considerable that
the date for the next session was uncertain.
As at Hakoné, the Master requested a modification of the rules because
of his illness. Otaké refused to accede. He was more stubborn than he had
been at Hakoné. Perhaps Hakoné had given him all the amendments he
could tolerate.
I was in no position to write of the inside happenings and do not
remember them as well as I might, but they had to do with the schedule.
Four-day recesses had been agreed upon, and the agreement had been
honored at Hakoné. The recesses were of course to recover from the strain
of a session, but for the Master, sealed in at the Naraya as required by the
“canning” system, they had the perverse effect of adding to the strain. As
the Master’s condition became serious, there had been talk of shortening
the recesses. Otaké had stubbornly rejected any such proposals. His one
concession had been to move the last Hakoné session up a day. It had been
limited to the Master’s White 100; and although the schedule itself was on
the whole maintained, the plan of having the sessions last from ten in the
morning until four in the afternoon was abandoned.
Since the Master’s heart condition was chronic and there was no way of
knowing when it would improve, Dr. Inada of St. Luke’s with great
reluctance allowed the expedition to Itō, and asked that if at all possible the
match be finished within a month. The Master’s eyelids were somewhat
swollen at the first session.
There was concern lest the Master fall ill again, and a wish to have him
free from the pressures of competition as soon as possible; and the
newspaper wanted somehow to bring to a conclusion this match so popular
