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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.