This is the third of ten parts devoted to a famous but still neglected ten-game match held almost 50 years ago.

Game 3, held in Kyoto on 14 October 1954.

In 1954 Japan was still recovering from the war. Just as during the war, it was frowned on if go players were seen to be enjoying themselves too much. It was therefore still usual to avoid too many visits to the spa towns. 

Although the constraints were loosening, a temple was always a safe bet. This game was in the Tenshu-an lodge of the famous Nanzenji Temple, the headquarters of the Rinzai sect of Buddhism and the same site as for the fourth game in the first match between Go Seigen and Hashimoto in 1948.

Located in the Saikyo area of Kyoto and backing onto the mountain Higashiyama, the Nanzenji began as a villa of the Emperor Kameyama. He turned it into a Zen temple, and later emperors elevated it to be the foremost of all temples. Gutted twice by fire in the 15th century, it was well restored by the later shoguns with the support of the imperial court.

The Nanzenji is known to many Japanese also through the play Kinmon gosan no kiri written in 1778 by Namiki Gohei I, a celebrated dramatist from the Kyoto-Osaka area. It is about a thief, Ishikawa Goemon, who is tempted away from his world of crime by the beauty of the temple gate.

Two of its most famous features are the Tenka Ryumon - Dragon Gate of the World - and the Tora no Ma or Tiger Chambers (rooms with famous paintings of tigers). But its true image, with its huge, black cryptomeria trees hemming it in on the steep slopes, is of quiet and seclusion. It is said that birds here have never heard the sound of a gun and so have no fear of showing their white breasts.

It would be just too neat if we could cast Hashimoto and Fujisawa as the tiger and the dragon in ferocious combat. In fact, they were both children of the year of the sheep, which perhaps sums up their go styles to precision. Neither was a wild fighter, but both were strong and positive, full of controlled aggression. 

Sheep? In Chinese, the word for sheep sounds like the word for the positive principle yang in yin-yang symbolism. Think of being chased by a ram rather than a bull, and you'd have a good idea of what it would be like to play this pair.

Fujisawa would maybe have the bigger horns. He certainly had the big advantage of Black in this game, but had showed alarming signs of drifting back to his poor use of time in the previous game.

Perhaps Fujisawa relied too heavily on being Black initially, for his opening was too solid and biased towards his framework on the right. Inevitably a fight was going to start, but by then the clock had moved on. Although he was not in time trouble it was probably thinking about the clock that made Fujisawa play the questionable push 101. Obviously Black is reluctant to let White play 101, but would White really have played there? 

Black 109 raised yet another question mark. Better was 115, forcing White 121. Black secured the cut 109 set up with 113, but Hashimoto had the luxury of time to spare and was able to spend 30 minutes working out White 118. And still made a mess of it!

He should have played 128, to leave Black eyeless. Black, turning from a ram into a turtle, seized his chance but the snapping jaws did not bite cleanly with 125. Instead of this he should have played 128 himself, making White capture at 130, and then live simply with a move to the right of 118.

Having missed an easy opportunity to live, Fujisawa struggled on to try to find a more face-saving point to resign. Even there he failed, and finally gave up at move 140. He had not used his full time allowance (8 hours 8 minutes, against Hashimoto's 5 hours 51). But he had catastrophically lost with Black. Hashimoto had broken serve.

To download Game 3 in sgf format, click here. The moves are also shown on the following diagram.

64 = 56 (r14); 66 = 61 (r13).