Here in the colonies we say a "best-of-ten-game match".

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Frankly, what's wrong with calling it a match and being done with it? It's not as if anyone is going to be confused by that 20 game match they played a few years ago.

Washed up former stars?

Lee Sedol is ranked #3 in Korea and Gu Li is ranked #4 in China.

The reason why they don't do a million dollar huge tournament instead is that the skill level between all the top pros is so thin that the sponsors don't want a final between two young kids who just got hot at the right time, they want to sponsor a huge event with two of the best players over the past fifteen years.

I like this format, and it won't work for a lot of players, but I think it's great for the game of Go.

To expand on this; both of them won a tournament this month against strong competition.

Past their prime? Maybe, or maybe the new generation is just stronger.
Washed up? No way. (makes me think Led Zeppelin winning a Grammy)

They get this match because they have been at the top of the Go world unlike any other pair of players in recent history (Do any others come to mind?) They have devout followings and many fans who want to see an epic clash between these two once and for all.

Almost every ten-game or higher match in Japan has been played with the uchikomi rule, although the precise point at which the handicap changes has varied over time. "Jubango" is therefore heavily associated with this rule. The risk of losing face as well as the match, by being beaten down a handicap, has always added a quasi-spiritual aura to such matches. The sublunary Yi-Gu match is not of this type. Differentiation would be useful.

Ten-game matches were never common in China, and arguably have never existed. Go players there were too peripatetic to indulge in long matches often. The designation of the Shi-Fan match (1739) as ten games, admittedly still used, came retrospectively from a later collector, Deng Yuanhui, who had ten games at the time. An 11th game is now known and some argue that 13 games were played. "Blood and tears" also has 11 games and there is no record that it was intended as a match - the series just turned out to be that long.

The earliest known ten-game match was 1706, in Japan. The longest matches have been sanjubango and nijuichibango. Junibango have also been tried. That would have made more sense for Yi-Gu, perhaps.

Hello,
well personally, I don't think giving some special meaning to the word 'jubango' is necessary. If its Chinese character form is 十番棋, it would be read as sipbeon-gi (ship-bun-ghee) in Korean by the way, and it simply means 'ten times go (game)'. In English, the word 'jubango' may have a foreign and a somewhat special impression, but by reading the same word in the Korean way with a similar difference between 'technology' and 'technologie' while I hope you understand, up to sipbeon (juban) is a common way to say ten times, and gi (go) is used in making Chinese root compound words to mean baduk, similar to using 'bio' to mean 'life'. Once again to clarify my point, 'jubango' is 'ten times go', and anything more I would regard as optional.

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Wait, please.

There was a 60 game match arranged between Honinbo Doetsu (7 dan) and Yasui Sanchi (9 dan) in 1668, when Doetsu objected to Sanchi's appointment to Meijin Godokoro. It was not an even match. Given the ostensible dan difference Doetsu started off taking Black with no komi. If Doetsu had lost he would have been exiled!

After 16 games Doetsu put Sanchi down to sen-ai-sen (BWB). (Edit: Sanchi to play WBW, I mean.) Only 20 games were played.

See http://senseis.xmp.net/?Sogo and http://mignon.ddo.jp/assembly/mignon/go ... etu01.html

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Because it ain't just a match. It is, as far as I know, the biggest ten game match that has taken place in my lifetime between two of the most dominant players of the last decade. This is something that I wake up at 4 a.m. to watch and although I can accept that it isn't a jubango in that it is not about forcing the opponent to a higher handicap, "ten game match" just doesn't have much zing to it. I see this match as belonging to the tradition of great ten game go battles, and that tradition is mostly full of jubangos. If this match is sub-lunary, its still pretty high up there.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I too think this is fantastic for go. "Washed up former stars" is one of the most laughable comments I have heard on any subject in a LONG time!

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Todd K. Pedlar
Associate Professor of Physics, Luther College
Decorah, IA

They are not the best in business anymore. It is just a rumble to promote whoever sponsors this event, using famous names. They could have also taken Chikun vs. Naoki, but the japanese market is obviously not so important^^. It's still a great match-up, don't get me wrong, but it's not an inofficial "boss-fight" or "world-championship". That's my point and that'd be my wish: to end all these multiple tournaments and make it one-dimensional towards a championship to determine the best Go player in the world. I am almost sure neither Sedol nor Li would be even candidates for a finale in such a system.

I don't think it is that hard to determine the best Go player in the world in this current system. Perhaps it's slightly difficult for western players to acquire the data but couldn't you just compare the #1 in Korea, China, and Japan and look at their condition over the past year or so to determine who is the best in the world?

The current system provides plenty of games to do so.

One of these things is not like the other...

Seriously, why didn't you lead with the second comment? Instant credibility!

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Occupy Babel!

The second comment isn't completely uncontroversial either in my opinion. Though it does possess the advantage of being nowhere nearly as breathtakingly inane as the first.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. It would be interesting to look at the professional ratings to see whether any of the youngsters had bested Lee and Gu for the majority of a year, or whether it's a case of them bouncing around at the top.

Edit: it's actually easy enough to do this (viewtopic.php?f=66&t=9689), and Lee especially has been #1 in Korea for a good chunk of the last year. Gu was tied for #1 in China at the beginning of 2013.

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Occupy Babel!

The problem with saying "best in the world" is that many of the people who rise to the top don't stay at the top spot for long periods of time. You need a clash among stars who are consistently in the top levels of the game year after year to attract the crowds. For me, their greatness is apparent in that they can still remain at such high standards despite being married with children so that they can't focus solely on the game anymore.

As to whether it is a ten game match or a twenty game match format, I'm just glad that someone is sponsoring such a great match for which we fans have waited many years.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Especially with regard to aging masters (in many endeavors) it is tricky to judge them. In most of these endeavors (obviously more so in a physical sport) endurance matters.

So no, the old master cannot keep up with the young replacements in the daily grind. But that does not mean if called upon for only a brief burst of effort the old brilliance might not shine through.

I've discussed this game at SL: http://senseis.xmp.net/?LeeSedolGuLiJubangoGame1

It has references to all commentaries I know of but only copies the main conclusions, while adding a bit of analysis of my own. I'm still missing out on a number of variations, like the hane at the head of two that White did not play at 22.