Posts Tagged ‘lee hanjin’

Huge Go Board in Ancient Fenghuang City

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Fenghuang is an exceptionally well-preserved ancient Chinese town, according to wikipedia, with unique ethnic languages, customs, arts and architectural remains of Ming and Qing styles.

Fenghuang Ancient City

Fenghuang also has the largest Go board in the world and it hosts a match between two invited top professional players as part of a Go festival every two years. The two players are playing the game in a tower next to the board, while people costumed in black or white are moving on the huge board to mark the current position in the game.

Fenghuang Ancient City

Besides the huge Go board, there are also statues of famous professional players – can you guess who is who?

Fenghuang Ancient City

This year’s match was between Lee Sedol of Korea and Gu Li of China. The game commentary, with analysis in great detail by Lee Hajin 3p, is broadcast in English on this youtube channel.






Photo sources here, here, here, here.

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Guess Who Won (7)

Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Tang Yi (left) was paired next against Lee Hanjin from Korea in Jeongganjang Cup.

Lee vs Tang

Tang won by 7.5 points. Here is the beginning of the game:

Lee vs Tang

It’s interesting to see:
  • the variation in the lower left: White prefers to build a thick position in gote with 14 and 16 nowadays instead of taking sente with 14 to the left of 9 and leaving bad aji behind.
  • how patient Black is with 33 (in most pro games I’ve seen Black attacks at 34 instead)
  • how Black plays 43 to “threaten to build a big go threat”: it’s not in itself a ko threat since the ko on the lower side hasn’t started yet, but if White responds to 43 in the upper left corner, Black can start the ko next and then she’ll have a clear ko-threat in the upper left.
(Link to the game record) Tang Yi is playing Yashiro Kumiko of Japan next.

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Guess Who Won (6)

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Lee Hajin of Korea (left photo) vs. Manami Kana of Japan (right photo) in 2008 Jeongganjang Cup.

Lee Hanjin vs. Manami Kana

Answer: Lee Hajin won by resignation. Here is the beginning of the game: after move 55 Black has more territory but has one unsettled group in the center.

Lee vs. Manami

Interestingly, the game record (from Cyberoro) shows the last move as White’s – did Manami resign on her own move? (Link to game here).

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Guess Who Won (5)

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Lee Hajin of Korea (left photo) vs. Fan Yujing of China (right photo) in 2008 Jeongganjang Cup.

Lee Hanjin vs. Fan Yujing

Answer: Lee Hajin won by resignation.

Lee Hajin

There a are a lot of interesting moves even if we only look at the beginning of the game:
  • Black 15 which is a new(ish) reply to White’s invasion at 12 (well, it stopped being new several years ago, but it’s “new” with respect to the English Go books)
  • The technique of playing kosumi-tsuke with 25, then directly attacking with 27 instead of defending on the right side – which of course makes a lot of sense in this case since Black is already very strong on the right side
  • The order in which 13 and 15 are played is puzzling to me: not sure what other choice does White have for 14 (maybe playing at 20? or jumping to the left of 17?), and how would that affect Black’s choice of 15.

Lee vs. Fan

(Link to game here).

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