Honinbo Retsugen (本因坊烈元, 1750–1808) was a Japanese professional go

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

, and tenth head of the

Hon'inbō In the history of Go (board game), Go in Japan, the four Go houses were four major schools of Go instituted, supported, and controlled by the state, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. (There were also many minor houses.) At roughly the s ...

house.

Biography

The period of the second half of the eighteenth century, as far as the

game of go Go is an abstract strategy game, abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board gam ...

in Japan is concerned, is lacking in distinguishing features. It is short on both technical innovation and outstanding individuals. Some authors, for example John Fairbairn, have suggested that in this era the levels in China and in Japan were quite close, though since Japan was strictly closed this can only be argued on comparison of existing game records in very different styles. Retsugen was on the receiving end of the brilliance of the one player of the era who still has a high reputation, Yasui Senchi. Senchi was a pioneer of the kind of centrally-oriented play later revived and refined as ''

shinfuseki or ''new opening strategy'' was the change of attitude to go opening theory that set in strongly in Japan in 1933. It corresponds, a little later, to hypermodern play in chess, with the inversion that ''shinfuseki'' thought the center of the boar ...

'' in the 1930s. 1750 births 1808 deaths Japanese Go players {{Japan-Go-bio-stub