is a female professional 5 ''dan'' Go player. She is currently an affiliate of the

Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associat ...

, the largest Go association of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and was a student of

Yasumasa Hane is a professional Go player. Hane was one of the best players in the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in during his peak. He is probably better known for being the father of the former Kisei holder, Naoki Hane. He was also known as a major cont ...

. On 4 September 2008, Aoba was defeated by Crazy Stone, a

Monte-Carlo Tree Search In computer science, Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is a heuristic search algorithm for some kinds of decision processes, most notably those employed in software that plays board games. In that context MCTS is used to solve the game tree. MCTS ...

Go playing engine, in an 8-stone handicap game in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan. The exhibition match marks the earliest official defeat of a professional by a computer with a conventional handicap.

Notes

Japanese Go players Female Go players 21st-century Go players 1978 births Living people {{Japan-Go-bio-stub