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Yamashita Keigo leads Cho Chikun 3-1 in the Kisei Title match.

Yamashita won game 4 in which Cho seemed to have had a comfortable position for the first 160 moves or so.

White’s slack play a little bit earlier allowed Black to play a beautiful double purpose move with 165 (the circle marked Black stone in the lower right) which threatens White’s positions on both lower and right sides. In the game Cho defended his right hand side group and Yamashita laid wasted on White’s lower side territory. The diagram shows what happens if White defends the lower side instead: his right side group dies.

I already wrote about Chang Hao’s (China) wins against Takao Shinji (Japan) and Lee Changho (Korea). That resulted in Japan being eliminated from Nongshim (Takao was the last member of Japan’s team), and Korea being down to their last member, Park Yeonghun.

Chang Hao was unstoppable and he defeated Park Yeonghun too (game record here).

Some interesting action happened in the upper right quarter of the board: first Black built a huge moyo there…

… then White managed to reduce it in a spectacular fashion, but Black kept enough of it to have a good lead.

Chang Hao proved again that he is a great champion - I became his fan when he came to the WAGC in 1990 as the Chinese representative (he was 14) and he won with a perfect 8-0 score (that was my first WAGC as the Romanian representative).

The final Chinese team member, Gu Li, didn’t have to play a single game during this Nongshim Cup.

Umezawa Yukari (of Hikaru-no-Go fame) defended her Female Kisei title against Mukai Chiaki 2p with 2 straight wins.

Ishida Yoshio 9p is participates in the game commentary after the second game in the picture above

Here’s the beginning of the game - click on the board to download the game record for the second and final game. (Here’s the game record for the first game.)

Kato Keiko was again on the wrong side of a half point game in the second Female Kisei game, so she lost her title to Xie Yimin (who is currently also Female Honinbo in Japan).

Here’s the beginning of the second game - click on the board to download the game record.

Xie Yimin (Female Honinbo) won the first game by half a point in her challenge for the Female Meijin title against Kato Keiko. Xie Yimin is on the right hand side in the photo.

Here is the beginning of the game (click on the diagram to download the complete game record):

“Old lion still has teeth”: Cho Chikun Judan won the playoff against Cho U to earn the right to challenge Yamashita Keigo for his Kisei title, according to Go Topics.

It will be a very interesting match: Cho Chikun has already defeated Yamashita earlier this year, in his defense of the Judan title.

Let’s see how Yamashita Kisei will defend his title against Cho.

Cho Chikun seems to be the only representative of the old Kitani school which can still win titles nowadays, not giving up to the new generation of players in Japan.

Go, Cho Sensei!

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

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.

I just published an interview with Cristian Pop - know as “Solaris” on some Go servers - the 7 dan from Romania who won an excellent 4th place at the recent World Amateur Go Championship.

He also has an online Go school - see his website if you are interested to join: http://www.goschool.resurse.com/

Today is day 1 of the first game in Honinbo Title match.
Yoda Norimoto is challenging Takao Shinji.

It is interesting to see that the match is between the authors of last 2 Go books I read: Takao Shinji wrote “Pure and Simple: Takao’s Astute Use of Brute Force” and Yoda Norimoto wrote “Vital Points and Skillful Finesse for Sabaki”.

(I bought both books from slateandshell.com a couple of months ago, I finished Yoda’s book and I’m almost done with Takao’s book - both are wonderful books, I highly recommend them).

So let’s see what style is prevailing this year: “pure and simple” or “sabaki”