Honinbo
Japanese Go competition
Honinbo (or Hon'inbō, 本因坊) is a title used by the head of the Honinbo house or the winner of the Honinbo tournament.
Honinbo house
The Honinbo house was a school of Go players officially founded in 1612 and discontinued in 1940.
The founder was the Buddhist priest Nikkai.
The name Honinbo was that of the pavilion on the grounds of the Jakkoji temple in Kyoto where Nikkai lived.
When the capital was moved to Tokyo, Nikkai moved along and turned "Honinbo" into a title, calling himself Honinbo Sansa.
Heads of the Honinbo house
1st Honinbo, Sansa (算砂, 1612-1623)
2nd Honinbo, San'etsu (算悦, 1630-1658)
3rd Honinbo, Dōetsu (道悦, 1658-1677)
4th Honinbo, Dōsaku (道策, 1677-1702)
appointed successor, Dōteki (道的) (died early)
appointed successor, Sakugen(策元)
5th Honinbo, Dōchi (道知, 1702-1727)
6th Honinbo, Chihaku (知伯, 1727-1733)
7th Honinbo, Shuhaku (秀伯, 1733-1741)
8th Honinbo, Hakugen (伯元, 1741-1754)
9th Honinbo, Satsugen (察元, 1754-1788)
10th Honinbo, Retsugen (烈元, 1788-1808)
11th Honinbo, Genjo (元丈, 1809-1827)
12th Honinbo, Jōwa (丈和, 1827-1839)
13th Honinbo, Josaku (丈策, 1839-1847)
14th Honinbo, Shuwa (秀和, 1847-1873)
appointed successor, Shūsaku (秀策)
15th Honinbo, Shuetsu (秀悦, 1873-1879)
16th Honinbo, Shugen (秀元, 1879-1884)
17th Honinbo, Shuei (秀栄, 1884-1886)
18th Honinbo, Shuho (秀甫, 1886)
19th Honinbo, Shuei (秀栄, 1887-1907)
20th Honinbo, Shugen (秀元, 1907-1908)
21st Honinbo, Shūsai (秀哉, 1908-1940)
Note: The 17th and 19th Honinbo are the same person, and the 16th and 20th are the same, too.
The titles 22nd-26th Honinbo are honorary titles
given to players who won the Honinbo tournament sufficiently often.
Honinbo tournament
The Honinbo Tournament is a yearly tournament
for the title of Honinbo, held since the retirement of Shūsai.
First Honinbo tournament
The last Honinbo, Shusai, gave
(or sold )
his title in 1938 to the Nihon Ki-in, to be awarded in a yearly tournament.
Preliminary tournaments were held in 1939 and 1940, and the final title match,
between Sekiyama Riichi and Kato Shin, in 1941.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Honinbo” as japanese Go competition. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as japanese Go competition. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1197931. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1612, 1940, 1623 and 1630.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Honinbo” 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.