By Daniela Trinks, Korea correspondent for the E-Journal.
Wild Card Wins 5th Crown Haitai Cup
The Crown Haitai Cup is a Korean U25 tournament which has been held since 2017. Previous winners include Park Jeong-hwan 9p, Park Ha-min 9p, Song Ji-hoon 7p, and Lee Chang-seok 8p. In November 2021, 97 players participated in the preliminaries, and 28 made it to the main event of the 5th Crown Haitai Cup. The previous year’s winner Lee Chang-seok 8p and runner-up Seol Hyun-joon 7p were seeded, while the sponsor gave two wild cards to Byun Sang-il 9p and Cho Seung-ah 5p. The tournament employed a knock-out format and had a relatively short thinking time limit of 20 minutes plus 20 seconds per move (Fisher time). The final was held from January 24th to 27th between Han Seung-joon 9p (Korean rank #9) and Byun Sang-il 9p (rank #3). Han (26) had won the Korean President’s Cup in 2021, and he demonstrated his strength by winning the first game. However, the younger Byun (25) has more experience when it comes to title games, having already won four titles including the recent international 2021 Kuksu Mountain title. He relied on this experience to edge out a 2:1 victory and take home the title. Interestingly, Byun Sang-il has played in this tournament since its inception in 2017 without any success; he eventually prevailed on this his fifth attempt and walked away with $25,000. Runner-up Han Seung-joon received $10,000.
1st Hoban Title Winner
The Hoban Strongest Female Player’s Cup is a new tournament which began in August 2021. The sponsor is the Korean conglomerate Hoban Construction whose CEO Kang Sang-yeol has shown his interest in Go by supporting a female Go league team since 2016. In the qualifiers of this new competition 41 players competed out of which four qualified to join the three top ranked players (Choi Jeong 9p, Oh Yoo-jin 9p and Kim Chae-young 7p) and Cho Hye-yoon 9p who received the sponsor’s wild card. The main event, a round robin tournament, had a thinking time of 2 hours and a byoyomi of 1 minute three times. Choi Jeong and Oh Yoo-jin recorded the most wins, 6:1 and 5:2, respectively, and met in the finals from January 17th to 28th. In an interview before the best-of-five title match, both players were confident of winning 3:0 whereas Go experts anticipated a 3:2 result. The two rivals’ overall head-to-head score was 29:7 in favor of Choi. Last year, however, Oh Yoo-jin defeated Choi Jeong to win two major titles. As expected, the clash was very exciting and unpredictable, for instance the 3rd and 4th games took more than 5 hours to complete. In the end, Choi Jeong prevailed 3:1 to win the 1st Hoban title and her 22nd career title. She took home 30 million KRW ($25,000), while Oh Yoo-jin received 10 million KRW ($8,000).
Choi Jeong (left) and Oh Yoo-jin competed in the Hoban title match. Photo courtesy of KBaduk.
Choi Jeong had probably one of the busiest schedules amongst the pros; besides the Hoban Cup, she also competed in the Nongshim Classic Super Match, the Korean League, the Wooseul-Bongjo Cup, and the Maxim Cup. In total, she played 15 games in January 2021 alone. Impressively, she had a winning rate of 66.7%.
Obituary: KBF President Lee Jae-yoon
The president of the Korean Baduk Federation, Lee Jae-yoon passed away at the age of 73 on 21st January 2022. The Korean Baduk community mourned his sudden demise profoundly. He made great contributions to the development of amateur Go throughout his life. Just over a year ago, he was elected the 7th president of the Korean amateur Go association (KBF), and dedicated his time, energy, and financial resources to revitalize the organization which had faced many difficulties over the years. He also took leadership of the Korean Society for Baduk Studies (2008-2010) and the Daegu City Baduk Association (2020). He had a great passion for Go and sponsored the Amateur Deokyoung Cup for 39 years, as well as Daegu’s team in the Korean Amateur National Go League.
Korean Go Professional Association Elects 35th President
The Korean Go Professional Association elected Han Jong-jin 9p (43) as their new president. Han Jong-jin 9p received 168 votes (57%), 44 more votes than the current president Cha Min-soo 6p (a.k.a. Jimmy Cha). The presidency term runs for two years. Han Jong-jin will represent 392 Korean professionals, and promised to “expand the size of professional competitions, attract sponsors to launch new competitions, actively support Go promotion projects, introduce a professional referee system, and solve the problem of pro’s retirement compensation.”
Trinks is an associate professor in the Department of Baduk (Go) Studies College of Arts & Physical Education at Myongji University in South Korea.
