Kisei (Go)
Japanese Go competition

Kisei (棋聖) is an honorary title and Go tournament. The title, meaning Go Sage in Japanese, was a traditional honorary appellation given to a handful of players down the centuries. The element ki can also apply to shogi, and there were also recognized kisei in the shogi world.
Background
Kisei is a Go competition organised by the Japanese Nihon Ki-in. The competition began in 1976 by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and is the highest paying competition in Japanese professional Go, paying ¥43,000,000 to the winner since the 47th Kisei in 2023. The word Kisei is Japanese for "Go Sage", which is why before the Kisei tournament began, the only players who were given the title "Kisei" were Dōsaku and Hon′inbō Shūsaku.
The holder is challenged by whoever wins the round robin league. Players can get into the round robin league by going through many preliminary tournaments. Once there is a challenger to compete against the holder, the winner is decided through a best of seven match. The games are played over two days and each player is given eight hours of thinking time.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kisei (Go)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.