Surprisingly, Sakai Hideyuki 7P has become the new Gosei, defeating Japanese top player Chang Hsu 9P. In the fifth round of the 35th Gosei title challenge match, Sakai Hideyuki defeated Chang Hsu 9P by 2.5 points and won the series by 3:2.

Unlike Chang Hsu who holds 4 titles, this is the first title for Sakai Hideyuki.

Sakai Hideyuki became a professional at the age of 28. It was quite late compared to other players. Even though he was talented in Baduk, he had to stay as a strong amateur player to be a doctor. However, he changed his mind and challenged to be a pro. In 2000, he won the World Amateur Go Championship, and the Kansai Ki-in awarded him 5 dan professional certificate in September, 2001.

The Gosei (N³a¡) is the smallest of the seven big titles in Japanese professional Go. The winner's prize is ¥7,770,000 currently, an amount that is now lagging significantly behind the other big titles. It is sponsored by IBM Japan and a consortium of newspapers. Nihon Ki-inprofessionals must be 5 dan or higher to participate, while lower ranked players from the Kansai Ki-in may compete.
The Gosei shares most of its structure with the other big titles in Japan - the winner of a preliminary tournament (in this case a single knockout tournament) plays a best of five match against the previous year's title holder.
Due to the importance of the Gosei as one of the "big seven" titles in Japan, there are several paths of automatic rank advancement through it in the Nihon Ki-in new promotion system. Challenging for the title warrants a promotion to 7-dan, actually winning the title promotes to 8-dan, and finally winning the title twice gives an immediate 9-dan promotion. Though of course a player must be at least 5-dan to even be allowed to enter the Gosei preliminary tournament!

(Source: Senseis's Library)