Ear-reddening game

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Ear-reddening game" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on
Go
Game specifics
Rules Handicaps professional Proverbs List of terms Strategy and tactics Opening (theory; strategy) Fuseki (whole-board openings) Jōseki (corner-based openings) Life and death Tsumego (Go puzzles)
History and culture
History Equipment Variants Four go houses List of games
Players and organizations
Players European Female Ranks and ratings Professionals Organizations Competitions
Computers and mathematics
Go and mathematics Computer Go Go software Internet Go servers AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol
v t e

The ear-reddening game (Japanese: 耳赤の一局, Hepburn: mimiaka no ikkyoku) is a game of go of the Edo period of Japan, played on September 11, 1846, between Honinbo Shusaku (black) and Inoue Genan Inseki (white). The game is probably Shusaku's most notable game as it contains the "ear-reddening move"—so named when a doctor who had been watching the game took note of Genan as his ears flushed red when Shusaku played the move, indicating he had become upset.

Shusaku met Genan Inseki in July 1846 when he returned to Edo after staying in Onomichi for eighteen months. Shusaku was 17 years old and a 4-dan player at the time, while Genan was nearing his fifties and was ranked at 8-dan. The first game they played, Genan allowed Shusaku to play with a two stone handicap. Realizing he had no chance of winning, Genan suspended the game without finishing it, and played another one with Shusaku simply playing black without handicap.

Shusaku made a mistake early on in the taisha joseki, but would play well throughout the rest of the game to win by 2 points.