The 2021 Samsung cup has started and the Koreans are doing very well. I think 5 of them made it to the 3rd round. See the gotoeveryone page. I think Shin Jinseo won his game vs Fan Tingyu. There could be as many as 7 Koreans in the 3rd round...

There was wide disruption of Internet services in Korea so that two quarter-final games had to be abandoned.

Are they escapers??

I hadn't thought about this. In a "real world" competition, when something happens (heavy rain, cuts of electricity, atomic bombs...), matches are postponed. But when a game is played on-line, one party might have a problem while the other one is perfectly able to play. Has this happened before? I don't know if it was an organizers' decisions, or this is in the rules.

Go, chess, poker... and of course, e-sports, there is a lot going on nowadays. Connection failures are going to happen again.

One of the quarterfinals involved two Koreans: Shin Jinseo-Han Seungjoo. Was that match interrupted? What was the decision then?

Wasn't there an incident where Shin Jinseo clicked his mouse in byoyomi and the when the move didn't register? Was that someone else? I remember seeing the video and he was clicking furiously for a second or two and then lost on time. In that case, I think the tournament had rules to put the responsibility of hardware issues on each player. So, the game was officially lost by the rules, even though the player probably would have won the game. In this case, I think there was a petition (or something) based on the video footage and the tournament Director decided to have a new match.

Did you hear any resolution on this?

By the way, has anyone heard of young Chinese professionals abandoning their games after they run out of their 1-hour daily (3 hours weekly) video game allowance?

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chi ... 021-08-30/

Internal router in Korean Baduk site had problem. The game is postponed to 10/26/21(Korean date).

I seriously doubt that for professionals (however young) their time playing weiqi on-line is considered "playing video games". Also probably extends downward at least as far as the upper level students in training programs to become pro.Just like on-line time for school work.

Do Chinese servers like Fox Go or Yikiweiqi have age verification procedures for people who log in from China?

This is becoming more and more bizarre...

So Weiqi has the same status as any shooter game?

Maybe not, I'm just asking...

This is absolutely not the case. If anything, playing Go is being encouraged. I am participating discussions in several Chinese Go forums and this idea has never been brought up.

Looks like the final will be a Korean affair: Park Junghwan vs Shin Jinseo.

It looks like Shin had a difficult game and almost lost to Yang Dingxin. See here for some commentary in Chinese on his semifinal game.

Park Junghwan reached the Samsung cup final for the first time, 2 years after his last final of an international tournament. He is on a 10-game winning streak according to go4go, his last loss being to Shin Jinseo on Sept 22. So Park's in good form and will be eager for revenge.

The final starts Monday, Nov 1st.

Park jungwhan defeated Shin jinseo by 2:1 became Samsung cup champion!!!!

Yes, Park Junghwan avenged all those games he lost to Shin Jinseo recently. Also, he won after losing the first game, so his back was really against the wall.

These were great matches. I'm happy for Park and I was rooting for him, but mostly because Shin was favored.

With the openings, especially in the 3rd game, it really seemed like these 2 had deeply studied the same AI sequences in detail. It makes me wonder what AIs they are using to study and how often their systems are updated. Like, if a new public release is published then everyone has the same access. Will there be a time when countries or sponsors develop stronger AIs for tactical advantages in crucial matches? Is this already happening? Maybe it's not worth the money to do something like this now.