The 2nd BC Cup just concluded in Korea on April 27th, 2010. Lee Sedol 9p defeated Changhao 9p with a perfect 3-0 score. The games were very exciting and extremely difficult, but Lee 9p managed to edge out in every game. It is also notable that Lee Sedol 9p has been on a 24 games winning streak ever since he returned to the professional Go world. It remains an open question who will be able to stop Lee 9p’s winning streak.
The games of the final match will be provided later.
The top 2 seeds in the AGA Online Tournament, Myungwan Kim 9P and Yongfei Ge 7D, will face off on KGS in Sweet 16 on May 1, 2010. The game is scheduled to start at 1pm EST. I will provide live commentary on KGS for this exciting match.
For details of the tournament, please check http://ngol.us/Home.html.
In the 2nd World BC Cup tournament, many spectators were shocked when Lee Chang Hao 9p of Korea lost to another Korean Amateur 6d in the second round. A few years ago, who would believe that an amateur player can beat Lee Chang Hao?
The game was also very short, with Lee 9p taking black, resigned after only 96 moves. There was no tricky joseki, no complicated fighting, and no yose. Lee 9p did not think he had enough territory and simply resigned before yose.
Lee Chang Hao 9p has not been in good shape in the last couple of years. However, Lee Sedol 9p recently returned to the Go world after taking a leave for half a year. The next few months will be interesting, as we can find if Lee Sedol 9p is still as sharp as he used to be…
Happy Thanksgiving.
This is one of the semi-final matches of the 14th LG cup in Korea. Lee Changho 9p(Kr) defeated Park Wenyao 5p(CN) to advance into the final. In the other semi-final match, Kong Jie 9p(CN) defeated Park Yong Hun 9p(Kr). The final will be hosted in January 2010.
This is a slow game. Both players played solidly and focused on yose.
Continue reading ‘14th LG semi final, Lee Changho vs Park Wenyao’ »
In the semi-final, Kong Jie 9p defeated Gu Li 9p with a 2-0 score, and Qiu Jun 8p defeated Lee ChangHo 9p with a 2-1. Kong and Qiu will be competing in the Final match, and whoever wins will become a new world Champion.
This is the first game of the semi-final between Gu Li 9p and Kong Jie 9p. Very complicated attack and defense game with lots of tesujis.
Next update will be around mid-Nov.
Continue reading ‘14th SamSung Semi-Final, Gu Li vs Kong Jie’ »
On 11/2, the first round of the 14th SamSung Cup International semi-final was played in Shanghai. The two best-of-three matches are QiuJun 8p vs Lee Changho 9p, KongJie 9p vs Gu Li 9p.
In a very slow and close yose style game, QiuJun 8p managed to pull ahead and forced Lee Changho 9p to resign at move 207. On the other side, GuLi 9p and KongJie 9p played a very difficult fighting game. There were 3 separate ko fights and lots of dead stones. Eventually GuLi 9p had more dead stones on board and had to resign with 222 moves.
The first Kong-Gu game will be posted shortly after. I will wait on the result of the semi-finals and determine which game to comment. The next update should occur on Sunday.
This game is the first round of the 57th Japanese OZA title. Cho U 9p, who just lost his Meijin and Agon titles, successfully defeated Yamada Kimio 9p with only 106 moves. The game started slow but Yamada 9p’s misreading led to black’s sudden collapse.
Next game comment will be at the end of this month.
Continue reading ‘57th OZA Round 1, Cho U vs. Yamada Kimio’ »
This week’s go scene is not as exciting. There was no international tournaments, as Samsung cup’s semi-final won’t resume till early Nov.
One worth noting game is the first match of the Japanese OZA. The title holder Cho U 9p defeated Yamada Kimio 9p with only 106 moves. The interesting thing is that the game ended up with 3 ladders…
Game record and comments will be provided later today or tomorrow.
This is the final match of the 34th Japanese Meijin title tournament. White player is Iyama Yuta 8p, one of the young Japanese pros. Black player is Cho U 9p, who currently holds 4 of the titles in Japan (after losing Meijin).
In this Meijin tournament, Yuta lost the first match by 0.5 point. However, he picked up pace and won the next 4 games straight. Meijin is the second biggest Go tournament in Japan, and this achievement certainly placed Yuta as one of the top pros in Japan.
Enjoy the game and comments.
A “false” Ko threat
False ko threats are usually bad. However, in the 2010 Chinese Go League, Korean 9P Choi CheolHan intentionally played a “false” ko threat.
Graph 1.
Black is Choi 9p. White (Liu Xing 7P) just took the Ko on the upper right corner. If we count ko threats, it is clear that black does not have enough ko threats to win this ko.
Continue reading ‘A “false” Ko threat’ »