Ōta Yūzo
Japanese Go player

Ōta Yūzō (太田 雄蔵; 1807–1856) was a professional Go player.
Biography
Ōta was born in 1807. His original birth name was Kawahara Unosuke (川原 卯之助). He had gone through many name changes throughout his life, including Ōta Unosuke, Ōta Ryosuke, and finally, Ōta Yūzo. His father was a merchant at the time, and was from Edo. He had entered the Yasui family when he was still young, and would eventually be promoted to 7 dan on December 24, 1848. Unlike many strong players of his time, Ota never once competed in the castle games. This was due to Ota not following the policy that a go player must shave his head in order to play in the castle games, and given an official rank. At the time, Ota gave an appeal to the policy to allow him to be given the rank of 7 dan. He was so strong, that he was head and shoulders above his rivals.
The public source identifies “Ōta Yūzo” as japanese Go player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Yūzo, Japanese and player.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8081742. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1807, 1856 and 1848.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ōta Yūzo” 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.