Professional Go News - June 2013 Archive

Professional Go News Compiled by Go4Go

2013-06-30

• Iyama Yuuta 9-dan is the winner of the 25th Asian TV Cup, winning three games in a row. This is Iyama's biggest international success so far.

2013-06-25

• Iyama Yuuta 9-dan beat Takao Shinji 9-dan in title match #5 of 68th Japanese Honinbo tournament, having an overall lead of 3-2.

2013-06-24

• 15 years after the establishing the most successful professional Go league, the Chinese has launched a new league tournament for female players. The Female League A has eight teams. Each team has 3 players, 2 of which will play each round. There are 14 rounds and a total of 112 games scheduled for a season. Expect some interesting games!

2013-06-23

• This year's Chinese B league has completed. Unlike the A league, which is a 'proper' league running throughout the season, the B league is held like a Go congress, packing 7 rounds of games into 9 days, which poses significant challenges to older players (Lee Changho, as a guest player, only managed to win 3 out of 7 games). The two teams promoted are: a team from Sichuan, with strong players Gu Lingyi and Dang Yifei; and more surprisingly, a very young team from Tianjin - its 4 players only have a combined rank of 8-dan.

2013-06-20

• Chen Yaoye 9-dan, twice runner-ups of international tournaments, finally achieved international success by defeating Lee Sedol 9-dan in the last game of 9th Chunlan Cup final.

2013-06-19

• Defending champion Lee Sedol 9-dan managed to hold his position by winning the 2nd game of the 9th Chunlan Cup final. The 3rd and final game will be held on 20th June.

2013-06-17

• Chen Yaoye 9-dan beat Lee Sedol 9-dan in the first game of the best-of-3 Chunlan Cup final, getting one step closer to his first international title. Jiang Weijie 9-dan beat Kong Jie 9-dan to win the 3rd place, securing himself a seed position in the next tournament.

2013-06-12

• Another surprised round at LG Cup. All 6 Korean players, led by Lee Sedol, crashed out of the tournament, resulting in possibly the biggest Korean defeat for decades. Round 3 is scheduled in November. Now there are two interesting questions: (1) how far Iyama Yuuta can go at international level? (2) will we get a new champion this year (there are several new names in the quarter-final).

2013-06-10

• Lots of surprises in the first round of the LG Cup. Korea were hit badly, losing almost all their top players (for those ranking top 15 in the official Korean list, only Lee Sedol survived). China also suffered some major losses with top players like Gu Li and Shi Yue out. Japan was doing well with three of their four players entering the last 16. Round 2 will be held on June 12th.

2013-06-09

• The main tournament of the 18th LG cup will be held in Korea from tomorrow. The runner-up from last year, Weon Seongjin 9-dan, has to give up his seat because of his active military service. He will be replaced by Lee Yeongkyu 9-dan.

2013-06-06

• In the most recent Chinese official ranking list, the top 10 players are: Shi Yue, Chen Yaoye, Tuo Jiaxi, Gu Li, Tan Xiao, Wang Xi, Zhou Ruiyang, Xie He, Peng Liyao, Fan Tingyu.

2013-06-03

• In the challenger final of 38th Japanese Gosei tournament, Kono Rin 9-dan beat Matsumoto Takehisa 7-dan to become the challenger. 32-year-old Kono had won a number of Tengen titles in the past but never reached other major title finals. Is he able to dent Iyama's dominance?

2013-06-01

• Cho U 9-dan beat Iyama Yuta 9-dan in one of the most important league games in the 38th Japanese Meijin tournament. Cho is leading the league with a perfect 6-0 score so far; Iyama's score is 5-2, a hopeless position in the bid to become Meijin challenger (and to regain his achievement of holding 6 major titles simultaneously).