I think that opening is not good for black, and when Ichiriki grew the centre and offered Lee to make an even bigger lower right corner in exchange for a monster centre but he declined with that attachment on the left hoshi it looked hard for Lee. He made nice use of the aji to reduce the centre though, but not enough. A nice win for Ichiriki and Japan: goratings.org put his (#83, 3332) chances vs Lee (#4, 3543) at 23%. He started with 3 wins last year, but that was not against top opposition like Lee; next up Fan Tingyu (#29 3437, 35%).

I await by78 telling us how weak and overrated Japanese players are...

What's the formula to derive such percentages?

The standard Elo one at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_ratin ... al_details, a handy online calculator is http://www.bobnewell.net/nucleus/bnewell.php?itemid=279

I bet in other ranking method that apply Japanese bias he'll have less than 5% chance against lee sedol.

The game:


More fodder for analysis of the popular AlphaGo game 5 opening (though here top left is 3-4). Lee Sedol didn't play Mi Yuting's s10 attachment. I wonder why, that looks like an improvement to me, though as Ichiriki didn't do that sacrifice it didn't end up being relevant. Lee playing n8 seems to be an admission that AlphaGo was correct that pressing here is the key point of the board, but even though black played first in this area white still pressed for the centre, and made black feel overconcentrated on the lower side with the classic k3 sacrifice and subsequent blockade. e10 attach was interesting: I think if black simply plays h5 he can capture j5 to complete a big lower right corner, but then white ends up with a super-thick outside ending with g8 ladder, which is why Ichiriki didn't answer the attachment as then there is no clean ladder to fix.

The current (2016-09) list by mamumamu0413 have world #3 versus world #129 with a 14% chance for Ichiriki. But Ichiriki might also gain a few points for beating Iyama in the final of the Ryusei (game televised 9/26).

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Iyama seems to be in a big slump. But it's good that young Japanese players are getting better. Japan just made a tie with both Korea and China (too bad they can't overcome Taiwan) in the Asian New Star Match few days before. They didn't even send their best team to that tournament, no Ichikiri, no Kyo Kagen, and no Fujisawa Rina for the female spot, probably because of schedule conflict as usual.

Fujisawa Rina was supposed to attend, but then had the female meijin or honinbo (or whatever it was), so couldn't. So she requested to become a game recorder for the first match.

Korea didn't send out their best team either, so can't really say much there. But the Chinese team was really strong, so that was pretty impressive.

@Uberdude: But Ichiriki is around Ke Jie's age, and I don't think you would argue against my assertion that Ke Jie is a little bit stronger. Even Shin Jinseo, who is like 2 years younger, is probably a bit stronger than Ichiriki Ryo.

Personally I'm an Ichiriki Ryo fan, and I think he could become competitive on the international stage (especially since his family is already rich, maybe he won't care about earning money from domestic titles as much), but I think the fact that so many people are pleasantly surprised that a Japanese player beat lee sedol is proof that Japan is not doing as well as they could be, more than anything else.


I am of the type of thinking that people are just people, no one choose where they were born, so we shouldn't group them by where they were born. However, a lot of people do care about the country vs country match ups, and if Japan would become competitive, it would drive a lot more interest in the game, and would potentially get us more sponsors for big tournaments. So I definitely hope that Japan can do better on the international stage.

Another interesting note about Ichiriki is that he chose to graduate his high school commuting far distance while insei. Now he is attending Waseda, a prestigious university, while being pro. I've never heard of a top pro doing that.

Following game 2 right now. It seems to me that Ichiriki doesn't have enough points if white's lower area turns into territory, so he is now trying to make something happen there.

If so, why play the 101-102 exchange before invading? It seems to make things harder for black.

Edit. Ichiriki resigned, here is the game and a few thoughts. I can't help but think that something went awfully wrong for black if he had to invade so deeply.

I find very interesting because instead of living easily in the corner, white sacrificed in order to get a perfect outside wall. Not sure I would have dared to (if I could even have found the sequence, that is ).

Could black have tried something else to approach/reduce white? A contact play on the komoku or playing at 62?

It looks like black didn't get anything there. Was playing a point below better? I guess he wanted to keep sente?

2nd game;

Fan Tingyu defeated Ichiriki Ryo by resign.

Korea: Park Junghwan, Kim Jiseok, Lee Donghoon(through selection tournament), Kang Dongyoon(seeded), Lee Sedol(wild card)
China: Ke Jie, Tuo Jiaxi, Lian Xiao, Fan Tingyu, Fan Yunrou
Japan: Iyama Yuuta, Cho U, Kono Rin, Murakawa Daisuke, Ichiriki Ryo

Bold case - alive

It was pretty fast for Fan tingyu, 124 moves. It seems to be a perfect game for Fan tingyu.

My feeling is things went wrong for Ichiriki even earlier, as signified by at q10. The game result ended up making this stone look inefficient: black should have had miai of doing something good on the top side or something mean to the lower right white group. But white got to play first for a decent result in both areas. In the end he did cut off the q8 stones but white sacrificed them (and later the corner) nicely. So p13 cut was a good move I guess, and maybe r12 bad. Should r12 instead directly start action on the lower right? But great judgement from Fan to make it an almost hopeless game so early.

Like you say looks too normal: it's obvious white will outside attach to make a huge lower side territory and then black feels behind, so I think he needs some special move like e5.

Actually, I would. Ke Jie is a lot stronger .

Interesting, and do feel a bit...cramped.
It would be nice to have professional commentary on this game. Generally I feel that I get more from comments about professionals' mistakes/blunders than about perfect play.

Thinking a bit more about the p13 cut from white: in that shape following from the q13 shoulder hit you do sometimes see black defend with good shape at o13 (black doesn't have the ladder here). This is a very thick and powerful move, but could feel a bit slow. It places emphasis on thickness and moyo in the centre, and says the right side is not valuable. I don't think white is going to jump to r11 or slide to s11 anytime soon as the top right is already settled with the 3-3, so the only value of the right side is regarding pulling out the s8 stone after push and cut there (though I fear there is a danger white can give that single stone at r8 before he's added q8 to it in exchange for living in the corner and black may feel overconcentrated on the outside, so there are timing issues). So I don't think o13 makes sense instead of r12 for move 25, but perhaps it could be considered for move 23 instead of j16? That leaves the top side open for white to come in at h17, but the knight's move answer at g15 to create miai of j16 press and d15/d17 combo for sabaki against the corner looks like a decent plan for black*. And if white doesn't enter the top and black gets a chance to play there maybe with the o13 power he might jump to f15 for a more ambitious development of the top whilst also eyeing the top left 3-3 invasion (which becomes more severe after the jump, maybe white would answer at d18 to secure the corner and open the top for an easy invasion).

* Like this game with a similar popular joseki of black building thickness across the top right: http://ps.waltheri.net/database/game/68898/

from the pro commentaries I've seen (from weiqitv and sina), they think that black was slightly better after the white sacrifice, so at move 60. But Meng Tailing says black doesn't really know what to do with move 61 either, since a simple split on the bottom side doesn't look that great either, so maybe white isn't behind after all.

Sina says move 61 was really bad direction, but doesn't say what the proper direction is.

Then Meng Tailing says move 77 is the losing move. If he played the obvious move 1 lower, it would've been a very close match (but maybe white is slightly better). But after the sequences from 77-84, black lost a lot. And then move 85 was really bad, the extend upwards is the only move (although black would still be behind).

It's one of the funny things in that for all the arguments going on, I don't think anyone who pays attention thinks that (with the possible exception of Iyama), the top Japanese players aren't significant underdogs against the top 10 players in the world. It's just do you think they're 3-1 or 4-1 underdogs, or do you think that overstates their chances?

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Next game:

Fan Tingyu vs. Lee Donghoon

That shoulder hit in the upper right is one of those moves that is not at all in my repertoire. It seems like it has been played in a lot of cases, and seems to serve several different purposes. It doesn't seem as if it always appears when White has the potential to make a side framework like this game, and it seems like it often, but doesn't necessarily result in B sacrificing the corner.

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