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Cho U won game 4 in his Gosei Title defense against Yamashita Keigo and kept the title with a 3-1 score.

Here is the 4th and last game (you can download it here).

Cho U, on the right side in the photo below, won the second game in the Japanese Gosei title against challenger Yamashita Keigo. The score is 1-1 now.

Here is the game record.

Next game will take place in just a few days, on July 31st.

The Japanese Gosei title started yesterday.

The challenger (and Kisei title holder) Yamashita Keigo (left in the photo below) won the first game against Cho U Gosei.

Here is the game record. Yamashita (Black) mounted a double attack and eventually killed one of Cho’s groups.

Next game will take place on July 27th.

First round of the Ing 2008 international tournament was played yesterday in Shanghai, China.

Only Cho Chikun survived from the Japanese team: he defeated Cho U who played for Taiwan in this tournament.

Takao Shinji Honinbo lost to Wang Lei of China, Yamashita Keigo Kisei lost to Gu Li of China.

The only other Japanese player to play in round 2 is O Meien, who is seeded into the second round. You can see O Meien in the following photo, analyzing games from the first round (together with Otake Hideo of Japan and Cho Hunhyun of Korea, both standing).

Lee Sedol of Korea won against Hu Yaoyu of China by 5 points, but only after winning 6 points through the special Ing rule (one loses points by using extra time in the Ing Cup).

Chang Hao of China and Lee Changho of Korea will be also seeded into the second round (to be played tomorrow).

The most interesting game for me though was the one played by Catalin Taranu 5p of Romania (the European representative at this Ing Cup) against Piao Wenyao 5p of China. After the dust settled from a violent fight in the center of the board, Catalin (Black) ended up capturing a group of Piao’s and I thought he is ahead, but lost a large area himself in the upper left (Black 39 in the diagram eliminates the possibility of White starting a ko fight for his dead stones on the lower side, while White 40 makes sure Black cannot live in the upper left).

Catalin lost in the end, unfortunately (by 11 points). You can replay the game below.

The American representative, Jiang Mingjiu 7p, lost as well (against Liu Xing 7p of China).

Can you recognize the 9p photographer from the following tournament photo?

Tournament schedule and results at Go Topics.

Takao Shinji (on the right hand side in the photo) defeated Cho U in the playoff for becoming Judan challenger. (link to the game)

Cho Chikun is Judan title holder, and the first game will be played on March 6th.

Cho U won the 7th game of the Meijin Title and captured the title from Takao Shinji by 4:3.

After leading by 3:1, Cho saw Takao closing the gap and the score became 3:3. According to some statistics I read in Go World a while ago, it is most likely that whoever makes the comeback has the most chances to win the decisive game, but that wasn’t the case this time.

The title holder, Takao Shinji, kept alive his chances to defend the Mejin Title this year: he won today’s game by 2 and a half points, after what looked to me like a very good game for Black.

Takao won the first game of the series, but then Cho U won 3 in a row: one more loss for Takao and he is losing the title.

The score is now 3-2 for Cho U.

Cho U is just one step from winning Meijin Title: he won the 4th game by forcing a resignation in 141 moves.

Cho U won the 3rd game of this year’s Meijin Title by 1.5 points.

White (Cho U) played symmetrically for a little while - that must have put some pressure on Takao.

Cho U, playing black, won by resignation in the second game of the Meijin Title, so the score is now 1-1.

There were two very interesting exchanges in the two corners on the lower side in the first 70 moves.