Atomic Bomb Game

The Atom Bomb Game event at the Imperial War Museum in London, for the 60th Anniversary in 2005. Under the glass is the position of the board at the time the bomb was dropped. The 106 moves from the first two days had just been replayed on the board at the time. The board here belongs to T. Mark Hall. Just visible on the other side is Mark's diploma signed by Iwamoto Kaoru, a survivor of the Atom Bomb game.

The Atomic Bomb Game was a game played 4-6 August 1945 as the second game of the third title series for the Honinbo title, which was held at that time by Hashimoto Utaro. The challenger was Iwamoto Kaoru.

The venue for game 1 (23 to 25 July 1945) was the house of Fujii Junichi, Nakajima-Honcho, Hiroshima City. But game 2 was moved to the Chugoku Sekitan (a coal company, president: Tsuwaki Kan'ichi) employees' dormitory in Yoshimi-en, Itsukaichi-cho, Saeki-gun (Yoshimi-en, Saeki-ku, Hiroshima City today). Go had continued all through the war years in Japan, in reduced form.

The story of the game has been told often. The game recorder was Miwa Yoshiro, and the official observer/referee Segoe Kensaku, whose birthplace was Hiroshima. The second game was played on the outskirts of the city because propaganda leaflets had been dropped, concerning a new powerful bomb (it seems the move was at police insistence). The location was about 10 kilometres from the eventual centre of the explosion.

The blast from the atomic bomb "Little Boy" above Hiroshima interrupted the game in its third day. It came at 8.15 am and at a point where the players had replayed the position - but had not yet started the game again. There were injuries to some of those there caused by flying glass, and damage to the building. Hashimoto was blown off his feet. The game wasn't resumed until after lunch. The game was then played to a conclusion, Hashimoto winning by five points with White (there was no komi). This tied the match 1-1.

People at Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo thought all had been killed by the explosion, before Miwa came back to report the story.

An early Magic of Go column by Richard Bozulich provides more details on this event. The game itself may be viewed here.