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Gu Li is the new Fujitsu Cup winner:

He defeated Lee Changho in the final. Gu has an interesting way of concentrating before the game.

The playing room is pretty crowded with reporters - or maybe they allow the reporters in just for a few minutes?

Here is the game record. Interestingly, the otherwise rarely seen 2-space low hasami from hoshi, about which Jie Lie commented in the Lee Changho - Liu Xing game from the semifinals, occurred in this final game as well (move 7).

Gu Li is back in shape less than 2 weeks after losing the China-Korea tengen playoff match 0-2 against Won Sungjin.

The Fujitsu Cup semifinals took place yesterday.

One game matched Lee Changho of Korea against Liu Xing of China. Lee (on the left side in the photo) won by resignation.

The second game matched the two top Chinese players: Gu Li and Chang Hao. Gu (on the left side in the photo) won by resignation.

I love the look on the face of Cho Hunhyun (standing, right) as he watches his ex-student, Lee Changho, after Lee’s win.

Cho Hunhyun chatting with Otake Hideo of Japan, presumably about the two undergoing semifinals (games are being replayed on the two boards in front of them). (Cho Hunhyun was insei and became professional in Japan before coming back to Korea).

The final between Lee Changho and Gu Li will be played tomorrow in Tokyo, Japan.

A new elimination round was played in Fujitsu Cup 2008.

China is doing great, with 3 players in the quarterfinals; Korea has only 1 player left, while Japan was eliminated.

Chang Hao of China defeated Park Yeonghun of Korea by resignation:

Lee Changho of Korea defeated Yoda Norimoto of Japan by 3.5 points:

Liu Xing of China defeated Cho Hanseung of Korea by 1.5 points:

Gu Li of China defeated Lee Sedol of Korea by resignation:

Jujo and Rui Naiwei analyze together with Lee Sedol his loss against Gu Li:

Park Yeonghun won the final game by 1.5 points - so Lee Changho lost a big chance to comeback as a leader on the international scene.

The game record is on the Fujitsu page.

They said that July 7th 2007 (07-07-07) is a very lucky day (since number 7 is considered lucky). It was indeed a lucky day for the Korean Go, but not so for the Japanese Go: the semifinals of Fujitsu saw the 2 Korean players winning against the 2 Japanese players, so the final will be all Korean.

Park Yeonghun defeated Yoda Norimoto by half a point, while Lee Changho defeated Cho U by resignation.

Go the the tournament page for the Lee Changho - Cho U game, with Cyberoro variations.

The final will be played on July 9th, in Japan.

The International Fujitsu Cup 2007 started this weekend - and unfortunately everybody’s favorite “pro killer” amateurs - Fernando Aguilar and Jie Li - were eliminated in the first round.

I wrote a few thoughts on their games - unfortunately none of them seem to have had any chance. Of the two, Aguilar’s game is by far the more exciting.

Official matches between amateurs and professionals are unfair both ways: they are unfair for the amateur player, because the professional player has so much more experience and is playing Go for a living, but they are also unfair for the professional player because of the psychological pressure involved: there is nothing special if the amateur loses, actually that is 99% the expected result, while it’s such a painful outcome for the professional to lose…

Today was the final in the North American Fujitsu Qualifier - the tournament to decide who’s representing North America at the Fujitsu international Go championship.

Jie Li, who is an amateur, defeated Mingjiu Jiang who is 7 dan pro. Jie Li has won many games against professionals - most recently a best-of-3 match against Feng Yun 9p - including victories in the past against Mingjiu, and against Jiang “Jujo” Zhujiu 9p (Mingjiu’s brother).

In today’s final game, Jie Lie started by playing a calm, solid game, and strangely it was Mingjiu who seemed to try to push and complicate things, and got himself into trouble. Maybe the psychological pressure influenced Mingjiu’s game in a negative way - having lost to Jie Li before, and given that Jie Li has an amateur status, and that a pro isn’t supposed to lose against an amateur…

The game was very exciting, a lot of fighting: a big group of Mingjiu’s died pretty early on, and he tried next to catch up by attacking several groups of Jie Li’s, but that didn’t work out well.

First and second rounds of the Fujitsu Cup will be played at the Nihon Ki-in, on April 14th and 16th - looking forward for some exciting games. Go, Jie Li!