Shusaku's Osaka Rout

September 1846. Osaka, Japan. The ink was barely dry on the kifu of the Ear-Reddening Game when Yasuda Shusaku and Inoue Gennan Inseki sat down again. Their 1846 Osaka visit produced a remarkable series of encounters; this was the fourth game, played on 19 and 20 September (Koka 3). Shusaku took Black on even terms. After 197 moves, Gennan resigned.

Context of the Series

Shusaku's summer in Osaka had already rewritten the hierarchy of Japanese go. He had abandoned an unfinished handicap game when Gennan recognised he could not win, then defeated the Inoue patriarch in the Ear-Reddening Game by two points in one of history's most celebrated kifu. A brief unfinished game followed on 18 September. Then came this rout: no narrow margin, no miraculous tesuji, simply sustained superiority from a 17-year-old 4-dan against an established 8-dan.

The Game

Shusaku opened with the same calm, thick style that would earn him the nickname "Invincible." Gennan, perhaps shaken by the previous results, could not find a foothold. Black built influence, converted it to territory, and pressed White into defensive positions that gradually collapsed. By the middle game the result was no longer in doubt. Gennan resigned rather than play out a lost endgame.

Aftermath

Shusaku and Gennan played once more in this visit, on 24 and 25 September, with Shusaku winning by two points on Black. When Shusaku returned to Edo he was promoted to 5-dan and named heir to the Honinbo house. The Osaka series of 1846 remains the clearest demonstration that the Ear-Reddening Game was not a fluke but the arrival of a generational talent.

Primary sources for this account include the CWI Amsterdam Shusaku archive (RE[B+R], 197 moves, DT[1846-09-19,20]), John Power's Invincible: The Games of Shusaku, and Sensei's Library records of the 1846 Shusaku-Gennan series.