This eight rounds, two games per day championship will be played between May 26th and May 29th.

You can follow the updates on the International Go Federation’s website and on the Nihon Ki-in’s website.

The presence of the young and very strong players from Asia, several ex-insei from Europe and Fernando Aguilar from Argentina will make this a very interesting tournament, I am sure.

The hosting country, Japan, started very strongly with four Japanese players winning in the first round: Anzai Nobuaki defeated Chen Shiyuan of Taiwan, Takao Shinji defeated amateur Fernando Aguilar representing South America, Hane Naoki defeated Choi Cheolhan of Korea and a very big surprise: veteran Ishida Yoshio defeated Mok Jinseok of Korea!

Just like last year, though, after a strong start Japan was completely eliminated in the second round, unfortunately: Yamashita Keigo lost to Piao Wenyao of China, Cho U lost to Kim Jiseok of Korea, Anzai Nobuaki lost to Lee Sedol of Korea, Takao Shinji lost to Park Yeonghun of Korea, Hane Naoki lost to Kang Dongyun of Korea and Ishida Yoshio lost to Kong Jie of China.

Here is the record of the game in which Ishida Yoshio defeated Mok Jinseok (by resignation).

Complete tournament table here.

Next round will be played in two days, and it will match four Chinese players (Gu Li, Piao Wenyao, Kong Jie and Qiu Jun) against four Korean players (Lee Sedol, Park Yeonghun, Kim Jiseok and Kang Dongyun).

Korea will have two representatives in the quarterfinal: Heo Yeongho (who eliminated Chang Hao of China) and Lee Sedol (who eliminated Sun Tengyu of China).

As for Japan, only one of its four representatives who survived round one will play in the next round, and that is no other than the veteran Cho Chikun who defeated Qiu Jun of China.

Here is the record of the game in which Cho Chikun, playing black, defeated Qiu Jun by resignation.

Complete tournament table here.

This question comes up again and again. The replies vary a lot, from saying that current amateurs are so strong that there is little difference between them and top professionals, to saying that there is such a huge gap that amateurs can never get any close to top professionals levels.

It is being said that top Asian amateurs are quite close in strength to mid-level (5 dan) professionals. It is not easy to get a very accurate comparison though due to the fact that there are few chances for amateurs and top professionals to play together. One interesting data point is the series of results of the annual games between the professional Honinbo and amateur Honinbo in Japan. The handicap is adjusted each year according to the previous year’s result, and the handicap seems to vary between 2 and 3 stones.

A very big surprise came recently when Lee Changho was defeated in BC Cup by a Korean ex-insei amateur. A few years ago Fernando Aguilar, a very strong Argentinian amateur, defeated two 9 dan professionals in a row in Toyota and Denso Cup.

These kinds of exceptional results are keeping the amateurs hopes high. But exceptional results are statistical improbable. We have to look at several games to draw a meaningful conclusion.

At the recently finished Shusaku Cup organized in Romania there were two Chinese professional players invited (Luo Xihe 9p and Huang Yizhong 7p), and they played teaching games with several top players. Last year the guests were Mok Jinseok 9p and Kim Seung-Jun 9p of South Korea. The professional guests gave between 2 and 4 stones handicap to several European players rated 5-7 dan and won almost all games both in 2009 and 2010 editions. This shows that professional players are very very strong.

Pal Balogh 6d received 3 stones from Luo Xihe 9p and won by 3.5 points. This is the only instance when the amateur player won in the series of the Shusaku Cup demo/teaching games that I saw.

Ilia Shikshin 7d received 2 stones from Luo Xihe 9p and lost by 0.5 points.

Ondrej Silt 6d received 3 stones from Luo Xihe 9p and lost by resignation.

Cornel Burzo 6d received 3 stones from Huang Yizhong 7p and lost by time.

Lucian Corlan 5d received 4 stones from Huang Yizhong 7p and lost by 2.5 points.

Artam Kachanovsky 6d received 3 stones from Huang Yizhong 7p and lost by resignation.

Lucian Corlan 5d received 3 stones from Mok Jinseok 9p and lost by resignation.

Ali Jabarin 5d received 4 stones from Mok Jinseok 9p and lost by resignation.

Lucian Deaconu 5d received 3 stones from Kim Seung-Jun 9p and lost by 0.5 points.

EuroGoTV did an awesome job broadcasting the videos of the top two tables live as video as well as on KGS (archives here and here).

Here is the game that In-Seong Hwang, playing black, won by half point against Catalin Taranu.

You can find the final results here.

Japan had a very good result in this first round: 4 of the 8 games played were won by Japanese players: Yuki Satoshi 9p defeated Lin Zhihan 7p of Taiwan, Iyama Yuta 9p defeated Mero Csaba 6d, Yamashita Keigo 9p defeated Chen Yaoye 9p of China, and Cho Chikun 9p defeated Kang Dongyun 9p of Korea.

I was very happy and surprised to see the veteran Cho Chikun winning – I haven’t heard much about him these past few years.

The other winners in this round were Heo Yeongho 7p of Korea (defeated Yoda Norimoto 9p of Japan), Gu Lingyi 5p of China defeated Jiang Mingjiu 7p of USA, Choi Cheolhan 9p of Korea defeated Hu Yaoyu 8p of China and Lee Sedol 9p of Korea defeated Zhou Junxun 9p of Taiwan.

Second round will be played on March 29th, and we will see again 8 games – that is because there are 8 seeded players (seven Chinese players and Lee Changho of Korea)

Here is the game in which Yamashita Keigo of Japan, playing white, defeated Chen Yaoye of China by 4.5p.

This is the game between Iyama Yuta of Japan and Mero Csaba of Hungary. Iyama Yuta played black and won by resignation.

And here is the game that the veteran Japanese-Korean Cho Chikun won against the young Korean star Kang Dongyun (Cho played white and won by resignation).

Complete tournament table here.

Turned out that strength is not always in the numbers: the last man standing from the South Korean team, Lee Changho, single-handedly won the cup for his country after defeating all remaining Chinese players: Liu Xing, Gu Li and Chang Hao.

Lee Changho defeated Chang Hao by resignation.

In the game with Gu Li, Lee Changho also won by resignation.

You can find the complete tournament table at Mr. Kin’s website.

Cho U captured Judan from Takao Shinji last year. Takao then put up a good fight in the qualification tournament to become challenger, but was defeated by Yamashita in the final of the knock-out tournament that decided the challenger.

Cho U started his defense of the Judan title well and won the first game. The next game will be played on March 25th.

Here is the game record: Cho U played black and won by resignation.

You can see also the complete tournament table here.

It looks like Cho U’s bad form from 2009 has not followed him in 2010.

Here is the game record from the last game: Cho U played white and won by 1.5 points.

More photos here. You can also see a couple of videos from the previous game here.

Kong Jie won the best-of-three final with two straight wins. Since he has already won Samsung Cup and Asian TV Cup, this win puts Kong Jie in the number one position in the world judging by the number of international competitions won in the last year.

Here is the record of the first game. Kong Jie, playing white, won by 2.5 points.

Here is the record of the second (and last) game. Kong Jie, playing black, won by 1.5 points.

You can find the complete tournament table here.