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Round 3 of Ing Cup 2008 was played on May 4th.

After defeating Chang Hao in the previous round, Cho Chikun lost to Lee Changho by 3 points.

Lee Sedol of Korea defeated Kong Jie of China by 11 points.

Choi Cheolhan of Korea defeated Piao Wenyao of China by resignation.

And Liu Xing of China, who seems to be the surprise of the tournament so far, defeated Park Yeonghun by resignation thus becoming the only Chinese player to play in the semifinals.

The semifinals will take place sometime in September and will consist of best-of-three matches. Lee Changho will play against Lee Sedol, and Choi Cheolhan will play against Liu Xing.

Cho Chikun eliminated Chang Hao of China (previous Ing Cup winner) in round 2.

Looks like Cho Sensei is back in shape after his loses in Kisei and Judan earlier this year. He will play against Lee Changho in round 3.

The only other Japanese player, O Meien, was eliminated by Liu Xing of China.

Next round will be played in 2 days. There are 4 players from Korea, 3 from China, and 1 from Japan.

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.

The Ing Memorial 2007 European tournament is over: the winner is Fan Hui (2 dan pro from China, has been living in France for the last 7 years) with a perfect score:

Pl. Name                 Str Co. MMS   1    2    3    4    5    6   Pt  SODOS SOS
  1 Hui, Fan              7d CHN  6   14+  12+   4+   8+   2+   3+  6     23   23
  2 Taranu, Catalin       5d ROM  5   19+  13+  10+   5+   1-   6+  5     16   22
  3 Dinerstein, Alexandr  7d RUS  4   20+   4-  13+   7+  11+   1-  4     12   22
    Silt, Ondrej          6d CZE  4   16+   3+   1-   6-  13+  19+  4     12   22
  5 Pop, Cristian         6d ROM  4   21+   9+   8+   2-   6-  12+  4     12   21
  6 Juan, Guo             7d NED  4   24+  10-  12+   4+   5+   2-  4     12   20
  7 Surin, Dmitrij        6d RUS  4   13-  19+  16+   3-  15+  11+  4     11   18
  8 Shikshin, Ilya        6d RUS  4   23+  15+   5-   1-  17+  10+  4      9   19
  9 Kulkov, Andrej        6d RUS  4   17+   5-  18+  11-  21+  14+  4      8   15
 10 Mero, Csaba           6d HUN  3   18+   6+   2-  17+  14-   8-  3      8   20
 11 Groenen, Geert        6d NED  3   12-  14+  22+   9+   3-   7-  3      8   19
 12 Burzo, Cornel         6d ROM  3   11+   1-   6-  22+  18+   5-  3      6   20
 13 Dickhut, Franz-Josef  6d GER  3    7+   2-   3-  23+   4-  21+  3      6   19
    Soldan, Leszek        6d POL  3    1-  11-  23+  19+  10+   9-  3      6   19
 15 Bajenaru, Dragos      6d ROM  3   22+   8-  17-  20+   7-  18+  3      5   15
    Lazarev, Alexej       5d RUS  3    4-  20+   7-  18-  22+  17+  3      5   15
 17 Hora, Jan             5d CZE  2    9-  21+  15+  10-   8-  16-  2      4   18
 18 Teuber, Benjamin      6d GER  2   10-  24+   9-  16+  12-  15-  2      4   17
 19 Nijhuis, Emil         6d NED  2    2-   7-  24+  14-  20+   4-  2      3   19
 20 Corlan, Lucian        5d ROM  2    3-  16-  21+  15-  19-  23+  2      2   14
 21 Donzet, Frederic      5d FRA  1    5-  17-  20-  24+   9-  13-  1      1   16
 22 Bogackij, Dmitrij     6d UKR  1   15-  23+  11-  12-  16-  24-  1      1   14
    Fenech, Antoine       5d FRA  1    8-  22-  14-  13-  24+  20-  1      1   14
 24 Jacenko, Dmitrij      5d UKR  1    6-  18-  19-  21-  23-  22+  1      1   11

Second was Catalin Taranu, who only lost to Fan Hui. Then there is a large group of players with 4 points (including professionals Guo Juan and Alexander Dinerstein, and former insei Ondrej Silt and Cristian Pop).

The tournament page doesn’t have yet game records from the last rounds - I am especially looking forward to the game between Fan Hui and Catalin Taranu, which decided the first 2 places.

For those who don’t know yet: Fan Hui is the official trainer of the French Go Federation, and he also has a mailing list which you can subscribe to for free that delivers weekly Go problems to your email box. Check out this page.

A very strong invitational tournament has started yesterday in Europe: the Ing Memorial.

Among the 24 players, there are 4 professionals (Guo Juan, Catalin Taranu, Fan Hui  and Alexander Dinerstein) and 8 ex-insei (Cristian Pop, Dragos Bajenaru, Ondrej Silt, Csaba Mero, Bejamin Teuber, Emil Nijhuis, Dmitrij Bogatski and Leszek Soldan).

See all 24 pictures at this link.

Here is the tournament page, with links to the results and rounds so far (with game records and more pictures).

Two professionals already lost to ex-insei in the second round: Guo Juan lost to Mero Csaba and Alexander Dinerstein lost to Ondrej Silt.

I am sure there will be a lot of exciting games!