In the professional Pair Go Championship held at the end of 2009, I was paired with Hideyuki Sakai 7-dan (at the time). This was my debut, but I was astonished when we won. In that year, this tournament was also a qualifying tournament for the Pair Go World Cup, so I also made my debut in it as one of the Japanese representatives.

This game was with the Korean team in the quarterfinals. Our opponents were top players I’d never get to play in one-on-one games. But I faced the game very positively: it’s Pair Go, so there would surely be chances to win!

In the middle game, we got a bad position because of a mistake I made, but little by little we caught up and made the gap a narrow one. Then our opponents made a mistake with move 163, and we suddenly got a winning position. Then, just after I thought, ‘We’ve won!’ . . . Sakai made a move he regretted for a long time with White 176.

If instead we had played at 1 in the diagram, then the marked stone would have worked effectively, so the bottom white group would already have been alive. Moves at A and B are miai, so we have an easy win.

Even after that, we could have won if we had remained calm, but each of us was panicking because we were surprised by each other’s unexpected moves. (Laughs)
White 184 is a blunder that normally would be unthinkable. The large bottom right group suddenly died and regretfully we had to resign.

After the game, Sakai commented: ‘If I had played at a right angle . . .’ (referring to White 1 in the diagram). He was still saying this the next day. (Laughs)

This was a very regrettable game, but you lose like this only in Pair Go, so now it’s a memory that makes me smile.