Hi everyone,

Chinese A league 2017 finally started today. Games are available on Wbaduk and Tygem (and probably elsewhere anytime soon).


Have a nice day/evening/night

Mi Yuting vs Kim Jiseok was very interesting, with an opening probably inspired by Master's unusual kick of low approach to 3-4 aiming at overconcentration as vs Lian Xiao that Redmond commented on in an AGA video. Kim was the one kicking, and Mi came up with a nice counter of attaching not kosumi and then extending to the 5th line! See viewtopic.php?p=218702#p218702.

It is also worth noting that Lee Sedol is back and kicking, winning his game in typical Sedol fashion. And while his opponent was not exactly high-profile or what you would call a top pro for that matter, we have not been graced with too many of Sedol's games of late, and he will certainly be pitted against stronger Chinese players in the next rounds.

Looks like they are not skipping a beat: round 2 is already in the books, and with a few interesting (if not surprising) results.

Overall, it was a rather successful round for Korean players as they all won their games except for Kang Dongyun (who was defeated by Huang Yunsong) and Lee sedol, who lost by half a point against Zhou Ruiyang. Lee seemed to be in the driver's seat for most of the game but started slacking off towards the end of the middle game, giving Zhou a chance to catch up.

A little off-topic - although not entirely so -, but is Ke Jie getting into a slump? It may be too soon to ask, but after losing to Guo Wenchao two weeks ago, he fell to Zhao Chenyu (who is ranked the world's 67th best player according to goratings). The timing would be pretty bad, with his upcoming match against Alphago slated for next month...

Round 3 is already over.

The most notable result: Ke lost against Tang Weixing in just 124 moves. Tang is not doing really great lately (well, it has been so for a least a year now...), but he's one of the only player with a positive record against Ke Jie. Perhaps it will put him back on track.

On the other hand, Ke is having a hard time thoses days. He lost 4 of his last 7 games, that's really uncommon for him :/.

Both Ke and Tang played 3-3 points, and then Ke went for a big centre: very unusual game.

Yes. The whole game is really weird. This will be nice to study!

Round 4 was played today 5/5/17.

In the game Lee Sedol (Xiamen team) against Tong Mengcheng (Jiangsu), Lee Sedol being white counters a ladder with another "crossing ladder"

See image from sina :


Move 2, the ladder is good for black Tong Mengcheng but then Lee Sedol plays 4 thats does not work for him to make 2 reborn and escape/cut in the upper side !

The ending was very cool too, classic Lee Sedol using aji (of the failed ladder stones in fact) to the max the counterattack when you try to kill his weak group.

For the lazy:

Mi Yutin remains undefeated after 7 rounds.

Rounds 8 is over.

there were a lot of big pairings, even for chinese A league, such as:

Shin Jiseo vs Shi Yue
Choi Cheolhan vs Mi Yuting
Lee Donghun vs Tang Weixing
Lian Xiao vs Lee Sedol


17 years old shin beat Shi. I look forward for his game with Ke at the LG cup.
Mi invicibility is over as, Choi defeated him. Choi seems back in great shape lately despite his age (32 years old).
Tang won against Lee Donghun again and is now 4-0 against him.
Sedol beat Lian Xiao. Sedol has been having a tough time for around a year now, so it's nice to see him win this game. I hope this means he will not retire too soon.

Round 9 will be played on July 15th. I am looking forward to Zhao Chenyu vs Park Junghwan. Maybe Zhao 'The Champion Killer' can beat another world champion? By the way, Zhao Chenyu has been moved back to the captain's board.

Match up of Supor Hangzhou vs Huatai Securities Jiangsu

Li Qincheng vs Mi Yuting (fast game)
Park Junghwan vs Zhao Chenyu (captain's board)
Xie Ke vs Tong Mengcheng
Lian Xiao vs Huang Yunsong

Lee Sedol vs Chen Yaoye in round 12 was interesting: Lee allowed his group on the right to get separated for 2 extra moves on the left. How he managed/sacrificed these and the subsequent fighting was cool, lots of stones sacrificed for a while and then resurrected.