by James Davies, Ranka Online 
Update: The US team beat Europe in the team match on December 13; see report and links below for details.
The morning event on the second day of the SportAccord World Mind Games on December 12 was the second round of the women’s double knockout. The outcome was victory for both Chinese and both Koreans. Choi Jeong needed less than two hours to defeat Natalia Kovaleva by a wide margin. In a somewhat closer game China’s rookie King Yu Zhiying defeated Japan’s Women’s Honinbo Fujisawa Rina. Japan’s Okuda Aya then bowed in resignation to China’s Rui Naiwei after a long ko fight, and Joanne Missingham (right), trailing by a fraction of a stone with only two one-point moves left to play, resigned to Kim Chaeyoung.
In the men’s team matches, Korea’s Kang Dongyoon fell to China’s Tuo Jiaxi on Board 3, followed by Korean youngster Na Hyun’s loss to Mi Yuting of China, clinching the round for China. Park Younghoon saved face for Korea by playing to a narrow but secure victory over China’s top rated Shi Yue.
The Chinese women did equally well in round 3 of the women’s competition in the afternoon, with Yu Zhiying prevailing over Choi Jeong and Rui Naiwei defeating Kim Chaeyoung by the same fractional margin by which Kim had won in the morning. Four games were also played in the losers’ bracket, with good results for Chinese Taipei and mixed results for the rest of the world: Fujisawa Rina defeated Natalia Kovaleva; Joanne Missingham defeated Okuda Aya; Chinese Taipei’s Cathy Chang defeated North America’s Irene Sha; and in an all-Russian game, Svetlana Shikshina defeated Dina Burdakova. The losers of these four games have now been eliminated. Only the two Chinese players remain undefeated, and they will meet each other in round 4.
Preliminary Round 4 results from play on December 13: Joanne Missingham d. Jeong Choi of South Korea, Svetlana Shikshina of Russia lost to Chang Kai-Hsin and Yu Zhiying beat seasoned campaigner Rui Naiwei. In the men’s team event, China beat Japan across two boards, with Tuo Jiaxi and Yue Shi winning for China while Atsushi Ida won for Japan. The USA men’s team beat Europe across two boards, Huren Yang 1P beating Alexandr Dinershteyn 3P and Danny Ko 7D beating Ilya Shikshin 7D, while Fan Hui 2P defeated Mingjiu Jiang 7P. Click here for results and here for an interview with Missingham.
Game records — including Round 3 — are available on go4go.net.
Click here for Michael Redmond’s game commentary on the Fujisawa Rina vs Yu Zhiying Round 2 match.
Click here for Ranka’s interview with Hua Xueming, China’s non-playing team captain
photo by Ivan Vigano
