American Go E-Journal » Events/Tournaments

Tuesday, May 15: On Board 2, China’s Qiao Zhijian chose a variation of the Dosaku opening and played his first ten moves in less than one second each, quickly constructing a huge black framework in the bottom half of the board…There were fewer fireworks on Board 1, but after a good opening and a bad middle game, Korea’s Hyunjoon Lee outplayed DPRK’s Ri Kwang Hyok in the endgame and then won the final one-point ko to prevail by 2.5 points…On Board 7, Samuel Aitken (UK, at right ) used his fifth move to make a three-space extension from the third line to the second line, a new pattern that has been appearing in professional games. He and Yuan Zhou (US) battled it out for the next two and a half hours, but in the end Aitken resigned…On Board 9, Lukas Podpera (Chechia) and Japan’s Nakazono Seizo also battled it out for two and a half hours, but today Nakazono’s Japanese supporters had the satisfaction of seeing Japan’s amateur Honinbo score a convincing win in the longest game of the round. The fastest was the game between Mongolia and Portugal, over in less than an hour and described as ‘an easy win’ by Portugal’s Daniel Tome. The most dramatic involved the players from Romania and Singapore: “I had the game in my pocket for at least 90% of the time,’ said Romania’s Cornel Burzo after it ended, ‘but with the clock counting the time, I got stressed and tried to shorten the process by killing a group. The moment after I played the stone I realized it was a catastrophic mistake. I went from something like a hundred points ahead to a hundred points behind.” Click here for the complete report on Round 5. Click here for Round 5 game records, including Taipei-China (commentary by YangShuang 3P); Czechia-Japan; DPRK-Korea; UK-US.
– adapted from James Davies’ Ranka Online report; photo by John Pinkerton

One of just two women players at this year’s World Amateur Go Championship, Chile’s Leslie Perez (top left) says it was “destiny” that she learned to play go, taught by a classmate at university in Valparaiso where she was studying for her bachelor’s degree in computer science. She’s playing at 4k at the WAGC but had reached 1k on KGS a few years ago before her studies cut back her playing time. She’s now studying for a Ph.D in Belgium, “but I’m still playing go” she tells James Davies in a Ranka Online interview. In other interviews, Norway’s Pal Sannes (bottom right) reveals that he works for the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, predicting the weather…Yuan Zhou (US, top middle) talks about being “quite pleased” about losing to his student Josh Lee…Malaysia’s Zaid Waqi (bottom left) discusses developments in Malaysian go…Kerem Karaerkek (Turkey, top right) talks about his work as a mountain guide, guitarist and disco bar manager…Japan’s Nakazono Seizo (bottom middle) says that his go salon’s 6-point komi, permitting drawn games, “works fine.”
– adapted from James Davies’ report on Ranka Online; photos/collage by John Pinkerton

The fourth-round contest between the US and Japan turned into a controversial and dramatic slugfest involving a series of severe attacks, both players in overtime, a key losing move in the late middle-game, a ko fight with both players in their last period of overtime and a sudden loss by Japan on time, complicated by a clock dispute that went all the way up to the tournament’s chief referee. See So Yokoku 8P’s commentary on the game to see what all the excitement was about. Click here for Ranka Online’s complete reports on Rounds 3 and 4 (including a more detailed report  on the US-Japan game), here for the latest results and here for Round 3 game records and Round 4 game records.
– Chris Garlock; photo: Nakazono (left), referees Liu and Sun (center) and Zhou; photo by John Pinkerton

The World Amateur Go Championship games are played with basic time of one hour per player, followed by thirty-seconds-per move overtime, each player having three thirty-second periods to use. In Round 1 on Sunday morning, among the four seeded players, Qiao Zhijian (China), Lee Hyunjoon (Korea), and Yuan Zhou (U.S.A.) won handily, but Remi Campagnie (France) was upended by Pavol Lisy (Slovakia). This was a come-from-behind victory. ‘I was losing,’ Pavol said, ‘but my opponent made a big mistake, and after that I was winning.’ It was not an upset, however: both players are ranked 5-dan. In the other battles of the 5-dans, Leon Matoh (Slovenia) defeated Igor Popov (Russia), Lukas Podpera (Czechia) won a close 2.5-point victory over Longyang Li (New Zealand), and Eduardo Lopez (Argentina) prevailed over Martin Li (Sweden) by 8.5 points. The two youngest contestants both won their games, Chen Cheng-Hsun (Chinese Taipei) beating Carlos Acuna (Colombia) and Chan Chihin (Hong Kong) beating Felicien Mazille (Switzerland). Nakazono Seizo (Japan) won by a comfortable margin against Saechen Panjawat (Thailand), and in a very short game, Ri Kwang Hyok (DPR Korea) defeated Fang Xiaoyan (the second Chinese player). Chan Kouk Wang (Macau) won by forfeit when Ismail Ja (Morocco) failed to show up. Last to end was the game between Pal Balogh (Hungary, 6d) and Andreas Gotzfried (Luxembourg, 4d). ‘I thought it was about even through the middle game, but I lost a lot of points in the endgame,’ Andreas said. He had turned in a creditable performance, against one of the strongest players in Europe.
– excerpted from James Davies’ report on Ranka Online. Click here for latest results. Click here for online game records for the following Round 1 games: DPR Korea-China (Commentary by So Yokoku 8P, shown at left in photo at top right, with translator Ting Ting Chen and American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock); Thailand-Japan (Commentary by Yang Shuang 3P); US-Norway; Brazil-Korea.  Bottom left photo: Cornel Burzo (Romania) reviews his Round 1 game with Zaid Waqi (Malaysia). photos by John Pinkerton