GG Takahashi

Daiki Takahashi turned professional at go in Kyoto at nineteen, spent two decades in the upper ranks and moved into teaching, where his study group has produced two title challengers. Backgammon he found on a teaching trip abroad and calls his loud holiday, though nothing about it is loud. He never greets first. Whatever you send at the start goes unanswered, and then at the end, always, four words arrive after your last message, so that he has both said nothing and had the final word. Opponents who understand go recognise it immediately. He reads a position many moves ahead and commits without a flicker, and holds that talking has never once improved a move.