Life In 19x19

xed_over wrote:

Uberdude wrote: ... Baoxiang Bai ...

wait... so the Chinese are allowing amateur 8d's now?

Amateur 8d's were originally awarded by Nihon Kiin, but I think the convention that the WAGC winners become amateur 8d has been adopted by Chinese for quite a few years:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?TopAmateurPlaye ... ntry#toc15

Lost round 1 to Choi Woosoo 7d:

I managed to get a decent night's sleep, undistrurbed by the typhoon which did rather a lot of damage overnight: A few other results: Kim Kibaek beat Cristian Pop, Bai lost by half a point (he had 184 stones chinese counting) to Korean Chang Hyungyu 6d, and Song Hongsuk 7d beat his Korean opponent.
Pop vs Kim with Bai vs Chang in background. White connected on the 2nd line, can you see how to save black's stones? (My opp Choi in background with glasses)

Results of round 1 and pairing for round 2.

Lost my 2nd game against a Chinese 5d, but only by 2.5 points. Was probably leading a lot after killing a bunch of stones in the middle but played too safely (plus 1 blunder) in endgame so threw it away. Also didn't handle the n12 peep so well, that was a key point in the game.

looks like you are our only source for the game records. Is it chinese rules?



my comments on your game. Mostly on the fascinating bottom right corner, and some stuff on what is common in the opening

dhu163 wrote:looks like you are our only source for the game records. Is it chinese rules?

The top 2 boards are being broadcast, maybe on eweiqi or some other Chinese site. Yes Chinese rules.

Oh and the Chinese Weiqi Association bigwig who did the opening speeches and starts the rounds (on Nie Weiping's right in that VIP photo) is Wang Yi 5p. He likes his baiju!

Lost my 3rd game to Stanislaw Frejlak 6d of Poland. Got some double ponnuki thickness but didn't make many points with it, plus missed a mutual base point for weak groups (it was double sente, but I feared gote for me) so lost by about 20 in the end.



Results: after 3 rounds there are 4 players on 3 wins, all Korean.
Dusan did well with 2 wins, beating Csaba and Chan Yi Tien (Taiwan 7d). Pop also has 2 wins (Stanislaw and Chinese 6d). Andrii got 1 vs Taiwan 6d, Csaba 1 win vs Chinese 5d 10 year old, Surin got 1 win vs Rafif 5d from Indonesia (who I play next), Stanislaw just 1 vs me.

Game 4:

Fate seems to be against me, lost to Taiwanese 6d by half a point, after failing to kill a big group, and then right at the end playing a 1 point instead of 2 point yose...



Choi Woosoo is only one still on 5 wins, I hope he keeps it up because I'd feel bad if he lost first place due to crappy SOS from playing me in the first round... (tiebreak is SOS, then SOS minus first round score, then direct encounter, then "order of opponent's score" whatever that is, then draw lots). Overall Korea is doing well and China badly. European players getting the odd wins against Asians: Pop, Andrii, Dusan, Csaba on 2 wins. I play Surin next.

I lost to Surin, Choi Woosoo kept his winning ways.

Lost again to Taiwan 6d to keep up my perfect score. Kim Kibaek beat Choi Woosoo so my bad contribution to Choi's SOS comes into play. China's disater continues with Kim Jonghae beating Bai Baoxiang and Ma Tianfang yose blundered to gift the win to Song Hongsuk.

1st: Kim Jonghae (6 wins)
2nd: Choi Woosoo (6 wins)
3rd Kim Kibaek (6 wins)
4th Lim Kyoungho (5 wins)
...
Korea got top 7 places!

Thank you for all the updates, Uberdude. I've been following them closely.

Was there any explanation given, or casual discussion overheard, as to why there were no participants from Japan? I find this absence most notable.

Japanese players were able to enter the world group, which had 4 places. I don't know if any did (I think the tournament table may be online somwhere as Andrii played in it and referenced results, but I don't know where), but Taiwanese players got all 4 there. (I thought maybe Victor Chow from South Africa would be here).