The first two games of the Ing Cup Final between Park Jung-hwan 9p and Pan Ting-yu 3p will be featured in the next installment of Myung-wan Kim 9p’s AGA/Tygem live commentary this coming Friday evening, 5:30 p.m. PST, 8:30 EST, and then Sunday evening at the same time. Many pros give a slight edge in the match to the 19-year-old Park, currently number two in Korea, but expect the match-up with the Chinese 16-year-old Pan to be very difficult for both players. Park, once called “the future emperor,” has started to be called “the current emperor,” said Kim. “Park has completed the perfect Korean style. He has assembled every good part of a strong Korean go player’s game. Lee Sedol's fighting spirit, Lee Chang-ho's endgame, Cho Hun-hyun's haengma.” Pan, meanwhile, has been called the future of China by many experts including the legendary Nie Weiping 9p. Pan started playing at age four, and in his short career … including 2,000 games as a Tygem 9d in the last five years … has put together an impressive record against pros both weak and strong and a very stable game style. “He doesn’t readily collapse in any situation,” Kim said. Pan worships Lee Chang-ho.

The live commentary will be set up in Tygem’s World server, which will not have the problems observers experienced during the Samsung final. Each player gets three hours and 30 minutes to play, along with up to three overtime periods of 35 minutes each costing a two-point penalty. In theory, along with the lunch hour, a game could last 11 hours. A second phase of the best-of-five final in Singapore will take place in January and will decide who gets the $400,000 first prize and the $100,000 runner-up prize.

Please come and watch and tell your friends!

As you said "Pan worships Lee Chang-ho", and in addition to that Pan (or Fan) himself also stated that he admires Sakata Eio very much and takes him as a role model. I will try to post the source as soon as i find it.

In the following korean link you can find something about his opinions on Lee Chang-ho and Sakata Eio:
http://baduk.joybaduk.com/news/news/vie ... 681&gubun=

I'm going to make an idle long-term bet that Park Junghwan well be the first person to win the Ing cup twice.

I first saw one of his game back in LG game against a chinese pro, and I thought he is like a zen god, he plays so calmly and seems like he completely detaches his mind from the game while stay deep in the game at the same time.

Myung-wan Kims's next Live Commentary is tonight, Sunday, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time, 5:30 p.m., for game 2 of the Ing Cup Final. Log in via the World server on Tygem.

Poor Tingyu! Slated to be the best in the world and they can't get his name right. His surname is Fan, not Pan.

Presumably this arises because Koreans (Kim?) use p for f.

Yes, but my fault. I posted and I should have checked 'cause I've seen it both ways. We got it right in the EJ and I'll get it right from now on.

phan