Thirteen-year-old 7 dan Calvin Sun (at right in his match against Korea) placed fourth in the recent World Youth Go Championships, representing the U.S. Nine-year-old Kevin Fang 1d was the Junior Representative, placing eighth. “I am happy to have this opportunity to be in the exciting WYGC tournament,” Fang told the E-Journal, “I got to play with the top junior players in the world. I did not reach my goal this time, and ended up with the youngest player award. I hope I will do better next time.” The boys won a free trip to Penghu, Taiwan, to compete at the finals, July 22 – 28. Mingjiu Jiang 7p went as team coach (see below for his commentary on Sun’s critical Round 4 match against Czechia). “This was my sixth time representing USA in the WYGC,” writes Sun, “I placed fourth in
the senior division this year and Kevin tied for eighth in the junior division–which is a very good outcome considering he was the youngest player participating in the competition. He also got the award for ‘Youngest Player’. Other than the players from China, Korea, Japan and Taipei, the European Go players were also very strong. My most important game was the fourth round against Czech Republic’s representative, Lukas Podpera, 15. The winner would advance to the finals. Before the game, Mingjiu Jiang 7P helped me study all of Podpera’s games, and I played a fuseki he was not used to, thus leading throughout the game and winning by 17 points. In the Senior Division, Korea’s Insei Han Seung Joo placed first,
China’s Baolong Zhao 2P placed second, Chinese Taipei’s Jiayuan Xu 6d placed third, and I placed fourth. In the Junior Division, China Qicheng Li 1P placed first, Korea’s Insei Min-Jun Shin placed second, Chinese Taipei’s Zhengxun Cheng placed third, and Singapore’s Yifei Yue placed fourth. Penghu is an archipelago made up of 64 small islands west of Taiwan. The tournament took place on Penghu’s largest island, Magog. The last day we went to another small island and went swimming and crab catching . Unfortunately, it was raining that day so many activities such as snorkeling and fishing were canceled. For dinner, we ate the crabs we caught that afternoon,” said Sun.
– Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor, Photos by Yanchen Sun. From left, at left, Mingjiu Jiang 7p, Kevin Fang 1d, Calvin Sun 7d
