I have mentioned the rise and rise of women's go here several times and am pleased to be able to add another landmark.

Cho Hye-yeon has just (2018-04-11) reached the final of the Daejoo Cup for Veterans & Women - I believe only the second time a woman has reached a final in a tournament where both man and women play (Rui Naiwei went on to beat Cho Hun-hyeon in the Kuksu in the first instance).

Her opponent will be Cho Chikun, bidding for his 79th title.

It's hard to predict the result, but a Bayesian might feel safe in saying Cho will win. Without being sexist, I think it's even safer to say we know who will have the better hair style.

Most of the novel activity is in Japanese women's go, and it was good to see Nyu Eiko (Redmond's niece and born in Japan, despite the Chinese surname) notch a good win for Japan in this week's Huang Longshi Cup. She beat no less than O Cheong-a.

Oh what I would give to watch this, live, with English commentary.

I watched Cho Chikun vs Deep Zen and, even as a Go player, I found myself entertained more by the human-player's body language and muttering than the game. I guess that a clash of genders combined with a contest between a part-of-the-furniture and a new-up-and-coming could be just as much fun to spectate.

Her semi-final win against Seo Bongsu was exciting: unsurprisingly he attacked hard but she managed to wiggle out and counterattack.



goratings doesn't put Cho Chikun much ahead of her: #190 3242 vs #228 3213, plus she beat him by half a point earlier this year so I wouldn't bet against her:



P.S. Charlie, Cho Hyeyeon isn't a new and upcoming pro, she was the #2 female in the world from late 90s to late 00s (https://www.goratings.org/en/ladies/), dipped since (did she move to USA for while? she speaks fluent English), but is doing well again recently. She has done video commentary for some US Go congress events, and also made some difficult life and death problem books.

She also translated adorably portable editions of Xuanxuan Qijing & Guanzi Pu published as the Baduk Classic series by BadukTV. To tough for me to leverage much, but they are fantastic adds to any library.

Interesting event, but is it really a success for women that they are seen as equals to the 'a bit past it' players? Sounds a bit Nobbly Figs to me.

_________________
North Lecale

Same here. "Veterans & women" doesn't sound like a genuine appreciation of equal potential of the genders.

On the other hand "Ing Cup", "Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance World Masters Baduk", "LG Cup World Baduk Championship", "Bailing Aitou Cup", "MLily Meng Baihe Cup World Go Open Tournament", "Chunlan Cup World Professional Weiqi Championship", "Xinao Cup" etc do.

P.S. I do kind of agree with you, but that's the harsh realities of life: if you want to support female professional go players you have to discriminate in favour of them or else the men will get almost all the money.


Rui also got to the final of the Maxim cup (9-dans only, I don't know if any female 9ds other than Rui participated) twice, winning once.

Those still seem considerably greater achievements than Cho Hyeyeon could do here as Rui was up against the top (non-veteran) players of Korea (so also world at that time). This one is similar to the GG Auction Cup win-and-continue of women vs veterans, which is pretty evenly split with 6 wins for the women and 5 for the veterans. In last year's event Cho Hyeyeon beat Seo Bongsoo and Lee Changho (by 0.5) to win it.

Indeed, for Cho Hyeyeon, I would even consider her victory against Lee Changho last year a much bigger achievement (than being in the re-formated tournament this year).

As for female players in general, after Rui, I don't remember anyone did that well in fully "open" national or international tournament. In Japan neither Xie nor Rina can enter the Top-3 League, thought Hei Jaja did achieve that in tournaments in Taiwan, and at some times even considered among the top 10 of the country.

However, it seems that they sometimes do a better job in mixed-race rookie tournament. Yu Zhiying did won the Xiren Wang (Chinese Shinji-O) against Li Quincheng, at the time definitely one of the best Chinese rising star. Xie Yimin, at the beginning of her career, also reached the final of the U-20 Nakano Cup, losing only to Iyama Yuta.

Perhaps they reach their peak a bit younger than the men?

Cho Chikun beat Cho Hyeyeon in the final by resignation.