Background
Hideyuki Fujisawa was born in Yokohama, Japan.
藤沢 秀行
Hideyuki Fujisawa was born in Yokohama, Japan.
He was one of the best players during his era. One of the "Three Crows" along with Yamabe Toshiro and Keizo Suzuki (and later Takeo Kajiwara). Even though he was known more for his controversial acts, such as having a bad drinking habit, the most important thing that shone through about Fujisawa was his Go skill.
Besides Go, he was known to gamble and was a successful real estate dealer.
He also stated in his autobiography, although he did not mind being called Shuko, he preferred to be called Hideyuki. Fujisawa turned pro in 1940 and reached 9 dan in 1963.
He then went on a dry streak of titles. lieutenant has been said that during these Kisei runs in the 70"s and 80"s, Fujisawa would drink for nine months straight, then sober up for his title defense late in the year.
After his run of consecutive Kisei titles, the Japanese Nihon-Kiin awarded him Honorary Kisei.
He was known to play a very flexible fuseki but was infamous for making errors (poka) later in the game. The saying was that Fujisawa Shuko plays the best first 50 moves. In October 1998, he decided to retire from the Go world at the age of 74.
The following year Fujisawa was expelled from the Nihon Ki-in for selling unsanctioned rank diplomas to amateurs in protest against what he considered improper Ki-in policies.
In June 2003, the dispute was resolved and Fujisawa was reinstated to the Ki-in. He died of aspiration pneumonia in Tokyo on May 8, 2009.
He thus set a record for the oldest player to defend a title, a record which holds to this day.