Cho U, title-holder, defeated Gosei challenger Yuki Satoshi by 13.5 points in the second game of the title match. Cho U won the first game as well, and since Gosei has a best-of-five system, he needs only one more win to keep the title.
Yuki Satoshi has a very interesting style: his openings are quite non-standard, which leads to interesting games with many fights – this one makes no exception.
The result, 13.5 points difference, is unusual: professional players usually resign when the difference is larger than 5 points, but there are some cases when games are played till the end for various reasons:
- When in time-trouble and with lots of exchanges happening late in the game, one may simply not be able to count accurately.
- When one doesn’t find “the proper time to resign”, games usually continue till the very end.
- When one doesn’t feel like resigning.
Historically, Sakata Eio, one of the most famous professional players in Japan, was well-known for playing till the very end even in games where we lost by over 20 points difference.
Game record here.
For the complete tournament table, see this link.
The third game will be played on July 21st.
