Takeshi Oda
Faction: The Veil · View the Gallery
The Veil: 4 - Drifter (Power Level 2)
Takeshi Oda was a 9-dan professional go player who entered the final game of the Honinbo title match as the favourite. In the middlegame, on a board the commentators were calling close, he saw a single sequence — five moves deep — that would have ended the game and given him the title. He sat with the sequence on the board in his head for forty-three minutes by the official clock. He did not play it. He played a quieter move three lines away. He lost the game by half a point. He did not give an interview. He went home, sat at his own goban, set up the position once, looked at it, and went to bed. He was found dead of an aortic dissection seven days later. He came up Veiled with the white stone still between his fingers, and he has not let go of it. At the Lodge he keeps a side room with a single goban. Members come in. He bows. They are invited to place one stone on the board, anywhere, without explanation. The stone stays where they put it. Takeshi never plays his.