In a repeat of her last year’s performance, Lee Minjin 5p of Korea eliminated the last players of Japan (Kato Keiko) and China (Rui Naiwei) and won Jeongganjang Cup for her country.
Here is the final game, against Rui Naiwei (link to game record).
The match generated a lot of excitement also among other professional players following the game:
Takao Shinji won the Judan title match 3-0 against veteran Cho Chikun. Takao is also holding the Honinbo title.
Cho must have been exhausted after his attempt to capture the Kisei title from Yamashita Keigo (where he was barely defeated with a 4-3 score) - which ended on March 20th. With this defeat Cho lost his last major title this year.
Lee Minjin of Korea (right in the photo below) eliminated Tang Yi of China from the 6th Jeongganjang Cup on April 1st. (Link to the game)
Here is the after game discussion with Rui Naiwei.
Then she eliminated Kato Keiko of Japan as well on April 2nd. (Link to the game)
Japan is eliminated from the competition.
China is down to the last player, Rui Naiwei. Korea has, besides Lee Minjin, Park Jieun as well.
Rui Naiwei is in an interesting position because during the past many years she has been playing in Korea. In particular, Lee Minjin eliminated Rui Naiwei from the Women Kuksu (but lost the final to Park Jieun 1-2) less than 2 weeks ago, so in today’s game Rui must be particularly motivated against Lee.
Takao Shinji is one win away from capturing the Judan title from Cho Chikun after winning the second game as well, since Judan follows a “best-of-five” system.
After his unsuccessful attempt to capture the Kisei title from Yamashita, Cho’s last chance to hold a major title during 2008 is to defend his Judan title. (Cho defended the Judan title against Yamashita in 2007 - you can read last year’s title report on 361points.com).
Next game will be played on April 3rd.
There are a couple of vintage Go sets on ebay: an Australian made set from 1950:
(interestingly, the stones are Black and… Green - presumably for camouflage purposes 
)
… and an US made set from 1951:
None of the above are quite as old as the British Museum Go set, but may be interesting to collectors.
By the way of Go sets: for those of you interested in purchasing a Go set, 361points.com has a page with links to the main vendors and buying sources
During the Paris Go Tournament this weekend there was a demonstration match between Catalin Taranu 5 dan professional and Mogo which is one of the best Computer-Go programs in the world.
They played a “best of 3″ match on 9×9 with all games on even, 7.5 points komi.
Catalin won by 2-1, but the game won by Mogo shows that there was very much progress in Computer-Go during the past few years.
I wrote an article about this match, where you can also replay the game records.
Game 7 was played on March 19 and 20, 2008. This was the last game of the series: the Kisei title is a “best of seven” match, and the score before this was 3-3.
Yamashita won by resignation and kept the Kisei title.
The game became most violent in the second half, when Cho tried (unsuccessfully) to turn the tables after Yamashita took territorial advantage around move 136.
The first day of game 7 of the Kisei title has ended. This is the last game of the series because the Kisei title follows a “best of seven” system, and the score so far is 3-3.
The following diagram shows the position at the end of day 1. The last move was Yamashita’s (White) 44. Cho will likely play the sealed move as a jump to the left of his stones in the center, putting pressure on the White group in the center-left.
The rest of the game tomorrow will decide who will hold the top Japanese Go title this year.
First round of the international Chunlan Cup 2008 was played on March 15th in Hangzhou, China. This is a Chinese sponsored tournament, with a prize fund of 1 milion USD (of which 150000 USD for the first prize).
Besides several players from each of China, Korea and Japan, there were also one representative from Europe (Cristian Pop) and one from America (Jimmy Cha 4p, who is Korean-American).
The first round wasn’t very good for Japan, which saw almost all her team eliminated: Yoda Norimoto lost to Ding Wei of China, Kono Rin lost to Wang Yao of China, Kobayashi Satoru lost to Chen Yaoye of China and Imamura Toshiya lost to Jimmy Cha of US.
Takao Shinji was the only Japanese player to play in round 2 (which will be tomorrow, March 17th) after his win against Zhang Li 4p of China.
As for the two representatives from Europe and US: Cristian Pop of Romania lost against Won Sungjin 9p of Korea after a fighting game, but Jimmy Cha 4p of US won against Imamura Toshiya 9p of Japan - he had already proven himself in international tournaments in the past, he even defeated Cho Chikun once!
The following photo shows the beginning of the game between Won Jungjin and Cristian Pop.
And the next photo shows Lee Sedol (who is seeded directly into the 2nd round, against Ding Wei) studying the game between Mok Jinseok of Korea and Zhou Junxun of Taiwan (Mok won by 5.5 points). There is also another professional player next to him (can anybody recognize him?) studying tsume-go.
Cho Chikun won game 6 of Kisei by 4.5 points and evened the score to 3-3 (after being led 3-1 earlier).
Yamashita’s early attack in the upper right during day 1 and the resulted thickness in the center didn’t pay off in the end, though: Cho’s territory prevailed so the Kisei title is going all the way to the 7th game!
The following diagram shows what happened after Yamashita’s attack in the upper-right ended: Black took profit on the left side (although the captured White stones still have aji), but White also became very strong in the lower-left. Also, White’s kikashi with 72 is put to good use later, when White cuts with 94.
My name is Sorin Gherman. I studied Go as an insei in Japan, and I built 361points.com to share my Go experience with you.
