I have not heard any B-league news. Since the B-league only meet once a year Go Congress style and last year's meeting happened in June we will probably hear something next month.

Gotcha. I didn't realize it wasn't in parallel with the A league.

Oren: as this indicates, I didn't even have a link. Thanks for the offer, however.

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Occupy Babel!

The B-League, C-League and Women's League will take place in Quzhou from June 7 to June 18 this year.

Source: http://www.sohu.com/a/134619656_509324

Any idea if there will be a European team or players participating?

There was no European players in C-League last year. Since the competition is pretty intense I think it will still be a while before teams employ an European player. But European teams have won some high level amateur tournaments in China.



I found this article originally from Sina sports news
http://share.golinksworld.com/gonews.php?id=9069
This is an interview of 孔令文(Ko Reibun) when he accompanied the Japan players participating in the 3rd MLily Cup prelims back in March. He was asked about the upcoming B-League matches and what he said was Team Japan would essentially stay the same, with only Ichiriki Ryo (who will participate in the A-League this year as foreign member of team Chongqing and will be Gu Li's teammate) replaced possibly by Shibano Toramaru. Unfortunately Iyama still cannot come, not because Iyama does not want to come, but rather the Japanese Go community needs a good reason to let him play in China, such as a sponsorship that is too good to decline.

Andrew you must have heard something when you asked that question? Apparently there IS a European pro team playing in the C-league this year! They are playing under the name Tsinghua Zijing, presumably sponsored by Tsinghua University(Gu Li is graduate student there, and Zijing or Chinese redbud is the school flower of Tsinghua). They lost all 4 games in the first round against Team M'Lily.

In the B-league the Japanese team went 2-2 in the first round against China Mobile Shanghai.

Does "Japanese Go community" means the Nihon Ki-in? If a team in A-League hire Ichikiri, I bet there are other teams who would want Iyama in their squad. And the payment is still not high enough?

Well the journalist did not press Ko Reibun to elaborate on that subject. My guess is that some people in position to influence the decision do not like the idea of Japanese No 1 player playing in Chinese league as just another player. However I did read somewhere Ko Reibun said if the Japanese team could make it to A-league then he would be in much better position to get Iyama to join the team. But that is a very big if.

Yes, I had heard something but couldn't remember if some of the new Euro pros had played in C league last year, or there was a plan to do so in future.

I haven't seen any games by Ichiriki played in the A league. Do you know if he has participated yet?

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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

So far Ichiriki has not played for Chongqing. It might be scheduling conflict. On the other hand Chongqing usually plays Gu Li, Tan Xiao, Li Xuanhao, Yang Dingxin. Ichiriki is not significantly stronger than any of them so they are probably not in a hurry to use him. Foreign player can only appear in no more than half of the rounds anyway.