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Both the European and the US Go Congresses are over.

Catalin Taranu 5p of Romania won the European Champion title this year as the best placed European, even if his overall place was 6th. His score was 7-3, same as Alexander Dinerstein 3p, Ilia Shishkin 7d and Pal Balogh 6d, but Catalin came ahead on SOS (sum of opponents scores).
Otherwise, the congress was dominated by guests from Asia as usual in the last few years: first 5 places overall were taken by Park Jong Wook 7d of Korea (9-1), Hong Seok Ui 7d of Korea (8-2), Lai Yu-Cheng 7d of Taiwan (7-3, after a very good 6-0 start), Kim Joon Sang 7d of Korea (7-3) and Hong Seul-Ki 7d of Korea (7-3). Full results here.
European professionals don’t seem to be a match for the Asian top amateurs, unfortunately.

On the other hand, the US Go Congress was dominated by professionals - Asian professionals, that is. The winner of the open tornament was Kim Myungwan 8p of Korea (who also played the demonstration match against computer program Mogo) after defeating Jiang Mingjiu 7p of China in the final round. You can see the final results here.
Feng Yun 9p of China won Ing Masters after defeating Yang Yilun 7p of China - the game was commented live and extensively by Takemiya Masaki 9p of Japan who was the star guest professional at the US Congress. You can downlowd the commented game record from KGS. Final results are here.

It’s too bad that these major events in the non-Asian Go world are overlapping so many players and guest professionals have to choose one or the other - the two Go federations should work together to schedule them better.

Aoki Kikuyo of Japan (left in the photo) vs. Fan Yujing of China (right) in 2008 Jeongganjang Cup.

Answer: Fan Yujing won by 6.5 points.

Here is the beginning of the game (Fan plays Black):

And here is an interesting exchange that took place at move 78: White (Aoki) decided to sacrifice the stones on the middle of the right hand side, but they retain potential (and came back to life later in the game).

(Link to game here).

It’s time again for the “Guess Who Won” series. Today’s photo quiz is about the 6th Jeongganjang Cup game between Aoki Kikuyo 8p (Japan) and Kim Sesil 2p (Korea):

Answer: Aoki won by 2.5p.

Aoki (Black) used o-moyo (big moyo) strategy - see the diagram below for the first 49 moves (complete game record here).

Aoki’s next opponent will be Fan Yujing 2p of China (they will play later today).

I followed a live game on Cyberoro: Takemiya Masaki 9p against Yamada Takuji 7p.

Yamada was an A-class insei when I became insei in Japan, then he soon won the pro qualification. We both lived in the “Igo Kenshu Center” (Go study center) for a while (so did Kato Keiko who is currently defending her Meijin title against Xie Yimin).

Yamada played 2 unusual moves against Takemiya in the beginning of the game. First White 8 is unusual (normally White plays hane below Black 7):

Then look at White 38: tsuke against the hoshi stone!

I guess somebody was in a quite inspired mood

It payed off for Yamada, since he won the game by 2.5 points. Link to complete game record.

Cho Chikun forced the Kisei title owner, Yamashita Keigo, to resign in game 2. The score is now 1-1.

You can find the game record on the tournament page.

The game record below is from the third round which just ended: Lee Sedol won by 1.5 points, in a game in which Park Yeonghun seemed to have a slight lead when yose started.

The variations are the ones I found on the Cyberoro server, where the game was broadcast live.

Update:

Thank you Nexik for pointing out to what looks like a variation that shows Park’s last chance to win the game, and thank you Smurf for pointing out to the fact that GoGameWorld.com has a commentary of this game by Yoo ChangHyuk in their sample section (look for “[Sample Game] 12th Samsung Cup final game 3: Park YuongHoon vs Lee Sedol.”).

In the Jan, 11th round of the 6th Jeongganjang Cup, Aoki Kikuyo 8-dan of Japan met Song Ronghui 1-dan of China.

Again, guess who won?

Game record here.

In the 3rd game of 6th Jeongganjang Cup, Lee Sula 1-dan of Korea played against Aoki Kikuyo 8-dan of Japan.

I don’t know for sure who won since Go Topics hasn’t published the game record yet and I cannot read Korean… but I have my own theory about the result, given the following photos:

(By the way, behind Aoki Kikuyo one can see Jujo).

I was very surprised and sad to read today’s blog entry about a decline in Go/Baduk interest in Korea.

In case you don’t know about this blog already: it is an amazing view inside the life of a 7 dan professional player in Korea, Cho Hye Yeon.

It is interesting also to read this so soon after my
Go/Baduk Affected By “Internet Entertainment”? very recent blog entry, where I was commenting on some 2007 statistics which showed a decline in the revenue of Baduk clubs in Korea. My conclusion there was that players moved out of traditional clubs and play online more.

After reading Hye Yeon’s blog, though, I understand that there is a real decline in Baduk in Korea: many Baduk schools are closing, less books being published, less children dream of becoming pro players… Sounds very much like the situation in Japan that started in early nineties (maybe earlier?).

The reasons for this situation seems to be related to both extra sources of entertainment (when it comes to explain the decline in amateur players) and to the fact that attending top universities in Korea became more difficult, so parents are less inclined to gamble their kids future while letting them study Baduk (when it comes to explain the decline in the number of inseis).

Here’s also a quote from a 2 years old blog entry of Mr. Ooijer’s:

So why do all these kids want to be a professional? It is hardly rational. They gamble with their career.

Some western Baduk players do not see this hard life and have a much too romantic view about the life of a Baduk professional.

Let’s hope that in the new year 2008 Go/Baduk/Weiqi will grow again.

Happy New Year everybody!

Yamashita successfully defended the Oza title this year, against Imamura Toshiya: he won the 4th game today, so the final score is 3-1.