Although the championship started from 1:15 pm, the players came in the hall early and were ready.

Among all the players, the person who came to the hall first was the Women's Honinbo Izumi Kobayashi. Looking into a waiting room she said, "Hasn't Mr.Yamashita come yet?" And, she took out a piece of paper (kifu) with past game records and said, "I wanted to hear something from Mr.Yamashita." The paper seemed to be a game record from the last pair Go.

The next person who arrived at the hall was the 25th Honinbo Chikun. Soon after he arrived, he mentioned to Ms. Kobayashi, "Ms Inori got the right of challenger."

In fact three days ago, Ms. Inori 5-dan was in the game that gave her the right to become the challenger against a Women's Meijin titleholder.

Ms. Inori 5-dan had to fight against Ms. Izumi Kobayashi, who currently holds the Women's Meijin title.Coincidentally, Ms. Inori had a face-to-face match against Ms. Kobayashi, which was a prelude to the Women's Meijin title competition.

Before long Ms.Inori 5-dan appeared and said to the 25th Honinbo Chikun. "It was good game, I studied the game for a bit, so shall we review the game? " Soon after sitting in front of the Go board, they started to ardently review the final game of the Women 's Meijin Title challenger Contest.

Yoko INORI 5-dan Chikun HONINBO the 25th

Yamashita appeared a little late, and ran into the waiting room where the Women 's Honinbo Izumi Kobayashi was. Then she said with opening the game record paper ( kifu), "Will you please give me some advise?"

Izumi KOBAYASHI Women's Honinbo Keigo YAMASHITA Kisei

After all 4 finalists had arrived, I visited their waiting room and asked about their aspirations, respectively.

Mr Chikun: "I felt that I wanted to win by all means necessary this time. I kind of regretted my state of mind. Today is the last day to play for this contest, so I would like to play Go with ease."

Ms.Inori: "Since Mr. Cho played Go so well, I was very happy. Moreover, I think that he is also happy to play Go with four contestants today."

Ms.Kobayashi: "Thank you Mr. Yamashita for letting me play Go where such an idea does not simply come up by itself. Also, playing against Mr.Cho was one of my major goals this time. I am glad to have achieved this dream in Pair Go. With Mr. Yamashita, we became a perfect pair as our skill has also improved.So,I will do my best today as well."

Mr.Yamashita: "I was just following her."