View source for Tengen (Go)

{{Short description|Go competition in Japan}}
{{Go tournament
| tournamentname =Tengen
| fullname       =Tengen
| started        =1975
| honorarywinners=[[Rin Kaiho]]<br> 
[[Iyama Yuta]]
| sponsors=Three Newspaper Companies
| prizemoney=12 million [[yen]]
| affiliation=[[Nihon Ki-in]]
}}
'''Tengen''' (天元, ''center'' or ''origin of heaven'') is a [[Go competitions|Go competition]] in [[Japan]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Tengen tournament|url=http://gobase.org/games/jp/tengen/|publisher=GoBase|accessdate=2 September 2011}}</ref>

The name '''Tengen''' refers to the [[Go terms#Board positions|center point]] on a [[Go (board game)|Go]] [[Go equipment#Board|board]].

The event is held annually, and has run continuously since its inauguration in 1975.

== Tengen competition (天元戦) ==
The Tengen competition is a Go tournament run by the [[Japanese people|Japanese]] [[Nihon-Kiin]] and [[Kansai-Kiin]]. The Tengen is the 5th of the 7 big titles in Japanese Go.

It has the same format as the other tournaments. There is a preliminary tournament, which is single [[knockout]], where the winner faces the holder in a best-of-five match.

Before the 6th Tengen, the format was different. Instead of the title holder waiting for a challenger, it would be the two [[Go players]] left from the single knockout tournament who then played a best-of-five match to determine the holder.

The tournament was formed from a merger between the [[Nihon Ki-in]] and [[Kansai Ki-in]] championships. The former ran from 1954 to 1975.

==Past winners==
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: center;"
! || Year || Winner || Score || Runner-up 
|-
| 1
| 1975
| [[Fujisawa Hideyuki]]
| 3–1
| [[Ohira Shuzo]]
|-
| 2
| 1976
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
| 3–1
| [[Sugiuchi Masao]]
|-
| 3
| 1977
| [[Shimamura Toshiohiro]]
| 3–1
| [[Sonoda Yuichi]]
|-
| 4
| 1978
| rowspan=4 | [[Kato Masao]]
| 3–1
| [[Fujisawa Hideyuki]]
|-
| 5
| 1979
| 3–0
| [[Kataoka Satoshi]]
|-
| 6
| 1980
| 3–0
| [[Yamabe Toshiro]]
|-
| 7
| 1981
| 3–2
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
|-
| 8
| 1982
| rowspan=2 | [[Kataoka Satoshi]]
| 3–2
| [[Kato Masao]]
|-
| 9
| 1983
| 3–1
| [[Awaji Shuzo]]
|-
| 10
| 1984
| [[Ishida Yoshio]]
| 3–1
| [[Kataoka Satoshi]]
|-
| 11
| 1985
| rowspan=2 | [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
| 3–0
| [[Ishida Yoshio]]
|-
| 12
| 1986
| 3–1
| [[Sonoda Yuichi]]
|-
| 13
| 1987
| rowspan=2 | [[Cho Chikun]]
| 3–2
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
|-
| 14
| 1988
| 3–2
| [[Sonoda Yuichi]]
|-
| 15
| 1989
| rowspan=5 | [[Rin Kaiho]]
| 3–2
| [[Cho Chikun]]
|-
| 16
| 1990
| 3–1
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
|-
| 17
| 1991
| 3–1
| [[Kato Masao]]
|-
| 18
| 1992
| 3–1
| [[Yamashiro Hiroshi]]
|-
| 19
| 1993
| 3–1
| [[Kataoka Satoshi]]
|-
| 20
| 1994
| rowspan=3 | [[Ryu Shikun]]
| 3–1
| [[Rin Kaiho]]
|-
| 21
| 1995
| 3–2
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
|-
| 22
| 1996
| 3–2
| [[Rin Kaiho]]
|-
| 23
| 1997
| [[Kudo Norio]]
| 3–1
| [[Ryu Shikun]]
|-
| 24
| 1998
| rowspan=2 | [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
| 3–2
| [[Kudo Norio]]
|-
| 25
| 1999
| 3–0
| [[Kudo Norio]]
|-
| 26
| 2000
| [[Ryu Shikun]]
| 3–0
| [[Kobayashi Koichi]]
|-
| 27
| 2001
| rowspan=3 | [[Hane Naoki]]
| 3–1
| [[Ryu Shikun]]
|-
| 28
| 2002
| 3–0
| [[Cho Sonjin]]
|-
| 29
| 2003
| 3–2
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 30
| 2004
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
| 3–0
| [[Hane Naoki]]
|-
| 31
| 2005
| rowspan=3 | [[Kono Rin]]
| 3–2
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 32
| 2006
| 3–1
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 33
| 2007
| 3–1
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 34
| 2008
| [[Cho U]]
| 3–0
| [[Kono Rin]]
|-
| 35
| 2009
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
| 3–2
| [[Cho U]]
|-
| 36
| 2010
| [[Yuki Satoshi]]
| 3–0
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 37
| 2011
| rowspan=3 | [[Iyama Yuta]]
| 3–0
| [[Yuki Satoshi]]
|-
| 38
| 2012
| 3–0
| [[Kono Rin]]
|-
| 39
| 2013
| 3–0
| [[Akiyama Jiro]]
|-
| 40
| 2014
| [[Takao Shinji]]
| 3–2
| [[Iyama Yuta]]
|-
| 41
| 2015
| rowspan="5" | [[Iyama Yuta]]
| 3–0
| [[Takao Shinji]]
|-
| 42
| 2016
| 3–1
| [[Ichiriki Ryo]]
|-
| 43
| 2017
| 3–0
| [[Ichiriki Ryo]]
|-
| 44
| 2018
| 3–2
| [[Yamashita Keigo]]
|-
| 45
| 2019
| 3–2
| [[Kyo Kagen]]
|-
| 46
| 2020
| [[Ichiriki Ryo]]
| 3–2
| [[Iyama Yuta]]
|-
| 47
| 2021
| rowspan="2" | [[Seki Kotaro]]
| 3–1
| [[Ichiriki Ryo]]
|-
| 48
| 2022
| 3–2
| [[Ida Atsushi]]
|-
| 49
| 2023
| rowspan="2" | [[Ichiriki Ryo]]
| 3–1
| [[Seki Kotaro]]
|-
| 50
| 2024
| 3–1
| [[Shibano Toramaru]]
|}

== Trivia ==
* The first player to defend the title was Kato Masao who won four consecutive terms in the 4th-7th Tengen. 
* Rin Kaiho surpassed this with a record five consecutive wins in the 15th-19th  Tengen.  
* Iyama Yuta equaled this record in the 41st-45th terms, and has won the title a record eight times over nine terms starting with the 37th.

== See also ==
{{Portal|Japan}}
* [[Honorary Tengen]]
* [[Go professional]]
* [[China–Japan Tengen]]
* [[China–Korea Tengen]]
* [[International Go Federation]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/tengen/archive.html Tengen – Nihon Ki-in] (in Japanese)
* [http://gotoeveryone.k2ss.info/news/jp/tengen/ Full tournament grid since the 32nd edition]
* [http://homepages.cwi.nl/~aeb/go/games/games/Tengen/ Full tournament results and game records]

{{Japanese go titles}}
{{Tengen}}
[[Category:Go competitions in Japan|Tengen]]