American Go E-Journal » 2014 » December

by James Davies, Ranka Online
The first round of go competition at the 4th SportAccord World Mind Games on December 11 featured an epic encounter between the Korean and Japanese men’s teams, and a historic victory for a Russian woman. The Japan-Korea men’s match was close on all three boards. Yuki Satoshi (right) of Japan defeated Korea’s Park Younghun in a prolonged struggle on board one. In the battle between two young players on board two, Japan’s Ida Atsushi, 20, overplayed his advantage against Na Hyun, 19, by starting an unnecessary ko fight, in the course of which Na was able to revive his dead group and evened the score in the match at 1-1. All now depended on the outcome of the game between Seto Taiki of Japan and Korea’s Kang Dongyoon on board three, and the people following the action on the monitor screens in the adjoining room were held in suspense down to practically the last move, but after a grueling five and a half hours, Kang came up the winner by 4.5 points.

Meanwhile, the Chinese team of Shi Yue, Mi Yuting, and Tuo Jiaxi was dealing unmercifully with the European team of Fan Hui, Aleksandr Dinershteyn, and Ilya Shikshin. European stones died en masse on all three boards. The team from Chinese Taipei also blanked the North American team 3-0, although the game between Chen Shih-Iuan and Jiang Mingjiu on board one was quite close. Russia’s Natalia Kovaleva defeated Chinese Taipei’s Cathy Chang in the women’s individual competition.
– adapted from a longer report on Ranka Online; photo by Ivan Vigano

The fourth SportAccord World Mind Games officially opened at an evening ceremony held on December 10 in the banquet hall of the  V-Continent Beijing Parkview Wuzhou hotel near the Beijing International Conference Center, which is the competition venue. Thirty go players representing the best of China, Chinese Taipei, Europe, North America, Japan, and Korea will compete with each other December 11-17, rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s best bridge, chess, draughts, and xiangqi players. Counting all five disciplines, there are 150 contestants, drawn from nearly forty countries and territories on six continents. Click here for Ranka Online’s reports on the SAWMG’s Opening ceremony and draw and Players Converge on Beijing for the 4th SportAccord WorldMind Games.

Michael Redmond 9P’s gives a commentary (right) on the Round 1 game between France’s Fan Hui 2P and China’s Shi Yue 9P. “Shi Yue showed powerful fighting, starting with a center-oriented opening that developed into a big fight,” says Redmond. “Two early mistakes on Fan Hui’s part made this fight difficult for him.” Redmond also noted that “In the 1st round for women, Europe played well, got only one win out of it.”

Click on another insightful Redmond commentary, Dinershteyn-MiYuting_annotated.sgf, for an incredible game, in which Black opens with a 5-7 point play in each corner for his 1st four moves!

Click below for other first-round games:
DainelKo-ChangCheHao.sgf
IlyaS-Tuo.sgf
LinLi-Huiren.sgf
Mingjiu-ChenShihIuan.sgf
NaHyun-Ida.sgf
Seto-KangDongYoon.sgf
Yuki-Park.sgf
DinaB-KimChaeYoung.sgf
NataliaK-ChangKaiHsin.sgf
Okuda-SvetlanaShikshina.sgf

photo: EGF President Martin Stiassny (above right) drawing for the European team
– based on reporting by James Davies on Ranka Online; edited by Chris Garlock with technical assistance by Myron Souris