Both studied Go as kids in the famous Kitani Minoru school, and according to this source their score against each other is very-very close.

It is so nice to see Cho’s hand around Kobayashi’s shoulder, as they look over – what else? – a game of Go, online…

]]> http://www.361points.com/blog/2013/12/26/old-friends/feed/ 3 http://www.361points.com/blog/2011/05/29/japan-lost-to-norway-in-wagc/ http://www.361points.com/blog/2011/05/29/japan-lost-to-norway-in-wagc/#comments Mon, 30 May 2011 03:46:27 +0000 Sorin http://www.361points.com/blog/?p=471 The 32nd World Amateur Go Championship started yesterday in Matsue, Japan. Nothing unexpected in the first two rounds, but the third round came with a big surprise: Japan lost to Norway!! The Japanese representative this year is Mr. Hironori Hirata who will be 85 next month. He participated several times at this championship in the past, and even won it once. Too bad he made a blunder in this game: he failed to protect against a simple threat and a big group of his died. If he defended, he would have won by a few points (maybe less than komi).

Here is the complete game.

The tournament website is here. You can also read daily reports in the online bulletin Ranka.

I found Iyama’s move 40 quite amazing, it is played in a place that would never occur to me, see the next diagram.

In the game black replied by connecting with the triangle marked stone. This makes move 40 a very efficient forcing move, since now white has even more forcing moves from the outside. This diagram shows the strongest continuation for white – in fact white did play this, but much later in the game.

The last diagram shows why black cannot reply aggressively in response to white 40.

Here is the complete game.

Here is the exchange that took place at the end of the game:

The continuation is puzzling though – did Cho U make a mistake, or just set the scene for resignation? Here are the final moves. After black cuts with 6, a and b are miai for black, and he wins the semeai on the upper side.

White should have played as in the following diagram. The game looks close to me after this – in fact white looks a little ahead, but maybe I am missing something.

Here is the complete game.

The title holder is Cho U, while the challenger is Iyama Yuta who seems to be in very good shape recently (he defeated Cho U in the final of the Daiwa Cup).

Here is the game at the end of day one – Cho U plays white and he made the sealed move. White’s shape in the center looks bad, like damezumari, but he can capture some black stones and fix that.

Why is Lee Sedol the first Korean player? As a reminder, Nongshim Cup follows a “winner stays at the table” system, so usually each team would put their best players last.

According to wbaduk.com, Lee Sedol specifically requested to be put in the first place, presumably because he was planning to win all his games. In the light of this news, I was very satisfied to learn that he was eliminated by Xie He in the third game. I like Lee Sedol a lot, but not when he is so over-confident. This reminded me of Yoda Norimoto of Japan, who is usually bragging a lot before the tournaments he is going to play in, but his results don’t usually match his bragging.

Here is the record of the game between Xie He (black) and Lee Sedol (white). Xie He won by resignation.

Xie He will play against Sakai Hideyuki of Japan next.

Complete tournament table here.

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.