A List of Famous Go Games

Made before AlphaGo. YMMV. I might add some newer games one day.

• 1582 ★★★★★★ Nikkai, Honinbo Sansa vs Kashio Rigen – Tripple ko
  • At night, after the game, the emperor Nobunaga was killed. Since then the tripple ko is a bad sign. In the kifu there is no tripple ko, it is incomplete.
• 1625 ★ Nakamura Doseki vs Yasui Santetsu – W+
  • First move was, somewhat strangely, played on the side.
• 1682 ★ Honinbo Dosaku (Meijin) vs Peichin Hamahika (4handicap) – W+14
  • First official international match, Peichin visited Japan, but he was crushed by the go-saint in four handicap.
• 1683 ★★★★★ Honinbo Dosaku (Meijin) vs Yasui Shunchi (2handicap) – B+1
  • Dosaku’s masterpiece – 2 handicap lost by one point. Today’s professionals say that the fuseki is aged, that today even amateurs would play it better, but in the middle game Shunchi played a sequence of excellent moves. How Dosaku was able to catch up to 1 point difference is nearly incomparable.
• 1705 ★★★★ Yasui Senkaku vs Honinbo Dochi – B+1
  • Dochi’s surprising endgame tesuji brought him 2 points and the win.
• 1740 ★★★★ Shi Xiangxia vs Cheng Lanru – W+
  • Nine dragons playing with a pearl. All the groups fighting endlessly. Nothing clearly alive for a very long time.
• 1792 ★ Yasui Senchi Senkaku vs Honinbo Retsugen – W+R
  • Senkaku’s style – influence, Senkaku turned the game around with the fight.
• 1812 ★ Honinbo Genjo vs Nakano Chitoku (Yasui Senchi) – B+R
  • Move 69 looks nearly like a pass, no one is sure why it was played.
• 1815 ★ Honinbo Jowa vs Hattori Rittetsu (Gennan Inseki) – B+4
  • Masterpiece of Gennan against his irreconcilable rival.
• 1820 ★★ Yasui Senchi vs Honinbo Jowa – B+2
  • Marked as the best game of the Edo period. Although Black kept the advantage of the first move and won by two points, Senchi’s amashi strategy is praised a lot.
• 1835 ★★★★★★★★ Honinbo Jowa (Meijin) vs Akaboshi Intetsu – W+R
  • Blood-vomiting game. Jowa, who as a Meijin couldn’t afford to lose, had to face a new secret trick joseki (move 33) that gave Akaboshi an advantage. But Jowa then played three brilliant tesuji (68, 70, 80) and turned the game around. After a week of playing, Intetsu collapsed, started to vomit blood, and died a few days later.
• 1842 ★★★ Inoue Genan Inseki vs Honinbo Shuwa – B+6
  • The match of two players who had the strength of a Meijin but never became one. Jowa commented that Gennan was strong enough to become a Meijin but was unfortunately born in the wrong time. In the endgame Gennan was losing by one point, so he tried to live in the corner but failed, raising the difference to six points.
• 1844 ★ Honinbo Shuwa vs Yasui Sanchi – B+1
  • Move 63 is a very strange shape — a nobi where you wouldn’t expect it.
• 1846 ★★★★★★★★★★ Inoue Genan Inseki vs Kuwahara Shusaku – B+3
  • Ear-reddening game. The legendary move 127, just next to tengen, with which Shusaku surprised Gennan as well as onlookers and reversed an unfavourable game.
• 1851 ★★★ Honinbo Shuwa vs Honinbo Shusaku – B+4
  • Well-known to fans of Hikaru no Go — the first game between Touya Akira and Shindo Hikaru (Sai) in the anime is based on this one.
• 1852 ★★ Honinbo Shusaku vs Ito Showa – W+R
  • Confrontation of two generations — Shusaku (22) with white defeats Showa (50).
• 1853 ★★★ Honinbo Shusaku vs Ota Yuzo – W+3
  • With this game Shusaku forces Yuzo to handicap and wins the most famous match of the Edo period. Slow but thick move 88 says: “Just this is enough to win.”
• 1895 ★★ Honinbo Shuei vs Tamura Hoju (Honinbo Shusai) – W+2
  • Geta game. Move 92 is a well-known tesuji with escaping to geta, which saves white stones.
• 1926 ★★★ Honinbo Shusai (Meijin) vs Karigane Junichi – W+T
  • Kiseisha vs Nihon Ki-in. One of the most difficult games in history full of fighting (70-move semeai, etc). It was shown on huge boards in Tokyo gardens and contributed to the popularization of go.
• 1929 ★★★★★ Kitani Minoru vs Go Seigen – W+3
  • Go Seigen plays mirror go to move 65; Kitani plays a surprising tesuji at move 114.
• 1933 ★★★ Go Seigen vs Kosugi Tei – W+R
  • 16 soldiers, shin fuseki style. Go crushed his opponent using influence and attacking all groups.
• 1934 ★★★★★ Honinbo Shusai (Meijin) vs Go Seigen – W+2
  • Game of the century. Go plays shin fuseki — diagonal sansan, tengen, hoshi. Meijin adjourned the game at his leisure, and turned it around with tesuji on 160, reportedly found by his pupil Maeda Nobuaki.
• 1938 ★★★★★★★ Honinbo Shusai (Meijin) vs Kitani Minoru – B+5
  • Retirement game of Honinbo Shusai. Yasunari Kawabata wrote the novel Meijin about this game.
• 1939 ★★★★★ Go Seigen vs Kitani Minoru – W+2
  • First game from the most famous match of a new era (Kamakura jubango) between the authors of shin fuseki. Kitani started bleeding at move 128.
• 1945 ★★★★★★★ Hashimoto Utaro vs Iwamoto Kaoru – W+5
  • Atomic game. The game was played near Hiroshima when the atom bomb exploded (between moves 126 and 127). The position was destroyed, but the players reassembled it and continued playing.
• 1948 ★★★ Go Seigen vs Iwamoto Kaoru – W+1 or 2
  • After the game there was an argument about whether Black had to fill in a ko when he had more threats.
• 1951 ★★ Go Seigen vs Fujisawa Hosai – W+R
  • First match of two 9-dans in history.
• 1957 ★★★ Go Seigen vs Kitani Minoru – W+R
  • Encounter of two eternal rivals after 13 years — an excellent, often-quoted fighting game.
• 1957 ★ Takagawa Kaku vs Go Seigen – B+R
  • Go Seigen played the large avalanche.
• 1959 ★★ Go Seigen vs Takagawa Kaku (Honinbo Shukaku) – B+0.5
  • A ko dispute — White had more threats but had to connect anyway.
• 2003 ★★★★ Hong Chang Sik vs Lee Sedol – B+R
  • The broken ladder game. Lee Sedol intentionally played out a ladder which didn’t work for him.