Following Nakamura Sumire

[John Fairbairn]

You have Li down as 2-dan. She is 3-dan, and as far as I can see that is also what is said in the video captions. She's 17 BTW.

[Shenoute]

Thanks for the correction! Tygem had her as 2p so I just copied that. Must be a recent promotion, as far as I can see she was still playing as 2p less than a month ago.

[pajaro]

Yes, tough game. But, as someone in the stream said, those are top players. Even losing, just being able to put up a fight says a lot.

I see that Sumire might play a total of 4 games now (days 15, 17, 18) and perhaps more in the next rounds. It's a team competition, but I don't know how many members per team, and how many of them play at the same time. I see that the players for each individual game are announced 1 day before the game, but I don't know if that means the order of the players (first board, second board...) or who is playing each round.

Whatever happens, Sumire is going to get a lot of experience from this.

[Shenoute]

If I understand articles such as this one, it seems each team has 4 members, with 3 of them playing in each match. There are 10 teams and they will meat each other twice, so 18 rounds in total. The table showing the order in which they'll meet is attached below (taken from here).

Sumire is a member of team #8, 福建博思软件队 (a Fujianese software company?).

[pajaro]

Thanks for the correction! Tygem had her as 2p so I just copied that. Must be a recent promotion, as far as I can see she was still playing as 2p less than a month ago.

If Tygem works like Fox, it takes a long time to update the rank of professional players. Kibe Natsuki 3-dan (promoted in 2022) is still 2p in Fox, and I think I have other examples.

[Elom0]

Yes, tough game. But, as someone in the stream said, those are top players. Even losing, just being able to put up a fight says a lot.

I see that Sumire might play a total of 4 games now (days 15, 17, 18) and perhaps more in the next rounds. It's a team competition, but I don't know how many members per team, and how many of them play at the same time. I see that the players for each individual game are announced 1 day before the game, but I don't know if that means the order of the players (first board, second board...) or who is playing each round.

Whatever happens, Sumire is going to get a lot of experience from this.

I might have been exaggerating when I made that statement since 3rd board of a 6th placed team in the A league is probably equivalent in strength to 2nd board of a 5th placed team in the B league, but when you consider the depth in China none of these pros are lightweights in the women's game.

[Shenoute]

Tough game today too. Black played some kind of Chinese opening. I don't think that's very common nowadays, is it?
Nothing really caught my eye although I didn't really like white potentially being split into four(!) groups at the bottom after .
I'm not sure what was going on in the bottom right corner starting around . Was the goal to get moves like N2 and N7 in sente and keeping sente at all cost to avoid w J2?
Also, I guess white 101 is bad shape but maybe it's a good move here, I don't know. It doesn't look like white achieved much around there though.

[pajaro]

This is the 4th game between them, if I am not mistaken, and the result has always been the same. 2 of those games were in an event called "China-Japan Superstars Competition", in the end of 2019. Both were (even) younger and already drawing a lot of attention.

I am wondering how is the rest of Sumire's team doing, and in what position she has been playing. Is she first board? Second? Third? There is a 4-dan and 2 1-dan in her team, but I don't know how are the pairings, considering that there will be lots of rounds and games to play. And also, considering that most of the other players are Chinese and know each other, how must the other non Chinese players be doing?

[Shenoute]

Another loss for Sumire: https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98327

The sequence starting with is interesting. I'm not sure I like white's idea of creating an unstable group but since black has one too maybe that's fine. Black seems to dodge the attack without too much trouble though. Especially after 118. To my untrained eyes, this move looks like white is trying very (too?) hard.

[pajaro]

I, too, think that sometimes she is trying too hard.

In many of her games (wins and loses alike), I see that the AI evaluation puts her behind. Then, maybe she finds an unexpected move, or she had a hidden plan, and she wins. Or her hidden plan is not perfect, the AI knows, and her rival knows too. And then she loses. This is a risky line of play, but if you win enough, you get a false sensation of security. You tend to think that overplays are actually right, and overlook the danger. This is true for amateur players, but I guess that can be also true for pro players. At a different level, of course. But Sumire is still very young, and her mind can play tricks with her. As an spectator, I think that her biggest weak point is handling her mind, and her biggest enemy is herself (such a cliché, but so true).

Everything, of course, IMHO.

[Shenoute]

Sumire lost her game against Takao Mari in the 2nd round of the 42nd Female Honinbo.
Maybe I should stop watching her games live, at this point it feels like I'm jinxing her.

[pajaro]

You are not jinxing her. She is jinxing herself.

JK wrote "what's going on, Sumire?" in the video of the loss with Ayami.
Now, he wrote "Big slump, Sumire".

Clearly, she can lose to some people. But to some others, in this way... I hope she recovers soon.

[Shenoute]

Hopefully she does!

Watching these last few games of hers, I was reminded of what Michael Redmond said about his own career. That early on he used to play power go, aiming at subduing the opponent, but that at some point it just stopped working and he had to find something else.
Maybe the connexion is just in my mind though.

[Shenoute]

Sumire won her game against Xu Haizhe 2p in the Chinese league: https://igo-kifu.com/kifu/98418

Some pictures here. If I remember correctly, Sumire played her first two games online but this time she travelled to China.

[pajaro]

Yes, finally she won again.

Sumire lost also in the first round of the Go Seigen cup, but saw that she didn't play on-line, like the rest of the Japanese team. Here's the reason, the trip was to play more than one game.
I don't know how strong is Xu Haizhe. It could have been an easy win, giving a false feeling of confidence. Or could be a strong opponent, helping Sumire get over her slump.

The league is a team competition. Every player could play up to 3 games per round. Let's see if Sumire plays again and how she does.