In the history of go in Japan, the four go houses were the four academies of go instituted, and supported and controlled by the state, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. At roughly the same time shogi was organised into three houses. Here 'house' implies institution run on the recognised lines of the iemoto system common in all Japanese traditional arts.
The four houses were the Hayashi go house , Honinbo go house, Inoue go house and Yasui go house . Theoretically these were on a par, and competed in the oshirogo official games. The official posts of Meijin and godokoro were awarded, somewhat sporadically, and brought great prestige to the house. In practice backstairs intrigue was often brought to bear on the appointments. More creditably, since the Meijin title could only be awarded to the undisputed master player of the time, there were occasions when it was withheld from two candidates whose merit was very close (an example was Genjo and Chitoku , around 1810-1820).
The mode of teaching, by apprenticeship, brought a consistent and high level of play (though some say the standard sagged in the eighteenth century). Esoteric teaching was normal, with collections of very difficult tsumego being compiled, one of which, the Igo Hatsuyoron , is still used for professional training. Prepared variations were used in top games (notably in the blood-vomiting game of Jowa and Akaboshi ). Go secrets were state secrets, in effect; since the country was closed to foreigners, in the main, the only international competition was against players from the Ryukyu Islands, but those games are still cited as examples of the difference between strong amateurs and really strong players.
After a while the Honinbo house (of Dosaku ) emerged as most prestigious, and the Hayashi house ran into difficulties, eventually being taken over by the Honinbo. The Meiji Restoration threw the system into disarray, but three houses survived some hard times to 1900. Honinbo Shusai arranged that the Honinbo title should become a tournament of the Nihon Kiin after his death (1939). The Yasui house died out; it is not certain as of 2004 whether the Inoue house theoretically continues or not, though it dropped out of the mainstream from the 1920s.
