Iyama Yuta | Player Profile | PlayGo.gg

First to hold all seven Japanese titles at once

Biography

Iyama Yuta (born 1989) turned professional in 2002 and has been the dominant figure in Japanese Go for fifteen years. In 2016 he became the first player to hold all seven major Japanese titles simultaneously, and he repeated the feat in 2017.

He holds the record for most career titles in Japan and received the People's Honour Award in 2018. His Honinbo run of eleven straight years earned him the honorary title Honinbo Monyu.

In world championships he reached the final of the 22nd LG Cup in 2018, losing 1-2 to Xie Erhao, and has remained Japan's most reliable performer in the Nongshim Cup.

vs. Xie Erhao, 22nd LG Cup, Final Game 2

February 7, 2018

Down 0-1 in the final, Iyama took White and won by half a point to force a deciding game. It was the first world championship final for a Japanese player in over a decade. He lost the decider the next day.

Xie Erhao had the second game of the final in hand, and Iyama was down to 19% when he played B3 in the lower left on move 184. Black's F1 on move 185 was the mistake, and Iyama's chances jumped to 65%. A1 was the move that held, one only 10% of 9-dan players find. Iyama won by half a point.