Saturday, April 9, 1921: Saburo OKUSHIGE vs Seibei SAKAKIDA

Saturday, April 9, 1921: An Igo match between Saburo OKUSHIGE (59 years old), the chairman of the House of Representatives, and Seibei SAKAKIDA (57 years old), a member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Rikken Seiyukai Party, is reported in the Tokyo Nichinichi Newspaper. After the Diet session ended, Oku and Sakakida played three days and three nights of a game of go in Hakone, but Sakakida won all the matches. Sakakida once fainted after playing go 26 hours in a row.

From the latter part of the Taisho period to the early part of the Showa period, igo spread and became popular nationwide. The number of professional shogi players also increased, and in 1923, shogi players from east and west gathered to establish the Nihon Ki-in. Immediately after that, some players left and formed Kisei-sha. The Yomiuri Shimbun, which reported the record of the match between the Nihon Ki-in and Kiseisha, saw its circulation triple.

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